Christmas was just another cold day to survive—until he gave me a reason to hope… and a reason to fear losing it all.
After Leila’s abusive father-in-law abandons her and her children along the treacherous Santa Fe Trail, they take shelter in a decrepit shack, fighting to survive the brutal winter. With Christmas approaching and her faith in men shattered, Leila fears her dreams of a happy family may never come true. But when a lone rancher discovers them near death, she reluctantly accepts his offer of shelter, never expecting the warmth of the season could melt her heart.
Moses, a man hardened by tragedy, has lived in isolation after losing his parents in a snowstorm years ago. As Christmas nears, he can’t shake the memories of his lost family nor the guilt that drives him to push others away. But he can’t turn them away when he finds Leila and her children stranded in the snow. Despite his gruff exterior, Moses can’t help but be drawn to the warmth they bring into his cold, lonely world.
As Christmas Eve approaches, they must decide whether they are willing to embrace the joy of the season and trust in love while facing a vengeful outlaw who will stop at nothing to reclaim what he’s lost…
In a world where twinkling lights and carols fill the air,
Leila’s hope and Moses’s strength ignite a love rare.
Through trials faced and holiday cheer,
Their hearts entwine as Christmas draws near.
November 26, 1840
Along the Santa Fe Trail
“Everyone out!” Clifford Fletcher’s harsh voice shouted on the other side of the canvas wagon cover. Leila Fletcher looked up from her darning and frowned. Sam was still sleeping on the temporary bed she’d made in the middle of the wagon, but Mattie had stirred awake the moment she heard her grandfather approaching.
The eight-year-old scooted to the side of the wagon, her narrow face wary as her blue eyes flicked to Leila and then to the opening at the back of the wagon.
“Don’t get out yet,” Leila said soothingly. “I’ll go see what he wants.” She set aside the sock she had been trying to mend, despite how the cold stole her fingers’ accustomed nimbleness, and crouch-walked to the back of the wagon.
Her father-in-law was pacing just outside, raking his hands through his thick, gray hair as he eyed the leaden sky above the pines. He turned sharply as she hopped to the ground. “Where are the children? Why aren’t they coming out?”
“Because it’s cold out here,” Leila said. “And it’s barely light.”
“Don’t you get snippy with me,” Clifford warned, pausing in his pacing to glower down at her. “With all I’ve done for you and those kids, I won’t stand for no backtalk or nagging.”
Leila could have argued that the children where his own grandchildren—his own late son’s offspring—and thus it should be no burden to him to care for them, but she was long past reasoning with the man.
How many times over the past five years had he berated and blamed her for letting his only beloved son die of fever? As if she hadn’t nearly given her own life caring for him day and night? As if she hadn’t been as desperate—if not as heartbroken—as him when her husband and the only provider she knew had passed on despite her best efforts.
None of the inordinate love Clifford had born for Howard had spilled over to Howard’s wife and two children. Rather, they became the burden he felt duty-bound to bear. The albatross about his neck, as he had put it rather poetically during one of his rants.
She bit her lip, choosing her next words carefully. “I just don’t understand why you want us to get out of the wagon?” she said, turning the phrase up in a question. Meekness generally worked in keeping Clifford from getting more riled.
“I don’t have to give an explanation to you,” Clifford said rudely. Then he sighed, shrugging his stooped shoulders dramatically. “It’s going to storm,” he said heavily. “I want you three to hole up in that shack there while I go ahead and search out a better place. Maybe there’ll be a ranch somewhere around here where we can wait it out.”
Leila’s eyes darted fearfully toward the sky, where he had been watching it over the ridge. Sure enough, the clouds there looked thicker and darker than the ones already dampening the dawn that gradually flooded the trail.
“Why can’t we come with you?” Her voice quavered as she fixed her gaze once again on her father-in-law. Something about him was off, she thought. Why had he just given her an explanation after saying he didn’t have to give her an explanation? And why was he avoiding her eyes? It was almost as if he was feeling…guilty.
A bone-deep chill that had nothing to do with the rising wind struck Leila’s core. He wouldn’t— he wouldn’t abandon them here. Would he? The stone-hearted man had been threatening to do it all along the Santa Fe trail as a way to keep her and the children in line.
“Eating more than your share of the rations as it is!” he had accused on one occasion. “You’d think supplies grow on trees from the way you waste food.”
“I don’t waste it!” she had dared to protest. “The children are growing; they need to eat. I told you we shouldn’t leave with winter coming on. I begged you not to make us come at all!”
She didn’t know what boldness had come over her to make her bring that up again. It might have been the closest Clifford had ever come to actually striking her. As it was, he had immediately exploded, subjecting her to the kind of name-calling, blame-casting tirade that made her wish she could cover the children’s ears. They were always listening from not far away, and that made his abuse that much harder to bear. She wanted to shelter them from him, their own grandfather. And yet, he was all they had.
“You can’t come with me because I said you can’t,” he snapped now, in response to her feeble protest. “The children will be more comfortable in that shack anyways. Till I come back.” The final phrase was almost an afterthought.
Before Leila could protest or plead any further, he strode past her and yanked aside the wagon canvas. “Out. Now,” he snapped, and Sam and Mattie scrambled past him, hurrying to Leila and tucking themselves against her side. She put her arms around them, words hovering on her lips as terror tangled in her heart.
There had to be something she could say to make him change his mind. But the only things she could think of were sure to only make him more angry and belligerent. Besides, he was already casting down a small sack of breakfast supplies and stalking around the front of the wagon, with only a hint of a backwards glance.
Leila hated herself for standing silent as he drove away. But what else could she do?
“Where’s Grandpa going?” Mattie’s quiet voice pulled her back to reality. Leila forced a smile to her face as she looked down at the girl. Mattie’s blue eyes were worried as she gazed after the departing wagon. Her maple-colored hair needed re-braiding, and her nose was running. Leila hoped she wasn’t coming down with a cold.
“He’s going to find us a place to stay,” she said, the words sounding hollow on her tongue despite her attempt to imbue them with conviction. “And while we wait for him to come back, we’re going to have breakfast in that little cabin.”
The children turned with her toward the shabby little building tucked up against the ridge. It perched like a toadstool at the base of the ancient pine woods towering behind it.
“That’s a shed,” Sam corrected her, with all the authority of a six-year-old fresh from dreams. He squinted, pushing his lips forward to emphasize his statement.
“Well, shed or cabin, at least it’s sitting still. Won’t it be nice to be inside something that’s not constantly rolling and jolting along for once?” Leila asked. She was striving for a cheery tone, but weeks on the trail had depleted her ability to hide the heavy weariness that dogged her steps.
Back in St. Louis, it had been easier. They had a house where they could get away from Clifford, and he had business and friends in town that took some of his attention. Leila had even had a few friends and the usual activities of community to bolster her spirits. She didn’t know how much money Clifford had lost —or how— but once he had decided they needed to travel to Mexico City for a fresh start, there had been no talking him out of it.
Now, six weeks later, she thought she should probably be relieved to have a break from his constant oversight and criticism. If only it weren’t for the creeping dread that he had done just as he had threatened and left them high and dry on the side of a mountain in Colorado.
He wouldn’t do that. Would he?
Her mind was a rowdy tug-of-war as she picked up the limp bag of supplies and led the children up to the shack, tugging her shawl closer around her shoulders. The first few flurries of snow sifted down from the heavy clouds above them and brushed her cheek as they reached the sagging doorstep.
Somewhere down the mountain, a coyote yipped, its sharp voice echoing through the crisp air to be answered by another off in the woods behind the shack.
“Quickly, children,” Leila said. “Inside. See if there’s any firewood to get the woodstove cooking.”
Of course, there was none, and moments later, she made her first trek out to gather sticks at the edge of the woods, her neck prickling with the feeling that the coyotes were watching from just beyond the shadows.
Clifford Fletcher, if you abandon us on this mountain, she thought fiercely, So help me, I will…I will…
Survive, the mountain air seemed to whisper as it whipped around her, beginning to moan across the ridge and ushering over a vigorous hoard of snow crystals. You’ll be doing all you can just to survive.
November 30, 1840
Outside Clear Springs, CO
A gust of bitter wind whistled through the pine trees, stinging Leila’s face with snow and snatching at her threadbare shawl. Tearing the fabric from her numb fingertips, it poured around her shoulders like frigid, blue-black water. Leila yelped, grabbing for the flapping corner of the shawl and pulling it back into place. In the process, she lost her grip on the few chunks of deadwood she’d been able to pick up around the line shack, and they tumbled into the snow at her feet.
“Please, dear God, give me strength. Save our souls.” Her lips were so stiff with cold, they barely moved with the words of her brief prayer. It was the same prayer she’d been repeating every hour or so since the storm had hit that morning. And every day since Clifford had abandoned them here.
As this day progressed, the tiny fire she’d managed to keep going in the shack woodstove seemed to put out less and less heat. Each trip outside to find fuel robbed the shack of what heat it had managed to retain and sapped more of Leila’s strength. As the dull, gray light of day faded into the dark slate of evening, her desperation deepened.
We’re not going to make it through the night. The thought crossed her mind before she could squelch it, sending a pang of dread through her heart. No. That wasn’t right. They had made it this far. This could not be the end for them.
Bending at the waist, Leila managed to pick up the chunks of wood once again. She stumbled through the crusty powder piling on the ground and pushed open the door of the shack. Huddled by the small stove in the corner, Sam and Mattie whimpered at the sweep of cold air that sliced through the door after her, no matter how quickly she closed it behind her.
Tears stung Leila’s eyes as she crossed the tiny room to where her children shivered, wrapped together in the one blanket Clifford had left them. When Leila had the strength, she’d mixed more than one imprecatory prayer against her father-in-law in with her desperate pleas for God’s pity on her and the children he’d left behind.
How could he have done it? She would never be able to comprehend the selfishness and heartlessness and…
“Mama, I’m hungry,” Sam’s quavering voice broke through her thoughts. Leila shook her head, her face pinching as she looked up from stuffing the wood into the stove. Sam’s poor little face, pale behind his freckles, peered at her from over the blanket he clutched up to his chin. He should be round and hale and healthy, running circles. Yet here he was, his cheeks too thin and his eyes too big, asking her for something she had run out of the ability to provide.
A sob caught in her throat. “I’m sorry, Sammy. We ate the last of the food for lunch,” she said. “And there’s too much snow for me to forage anything for dinner.” She paused, regaining control of her trembling voice. “I need you to be a big, brave boy for me and wait until breakfast, all right?”
Sammy’s lower lip trembled, and Leila drew in a sharp breath. She refused to give in and cry in front of the children. It would only make them feel worse.
“What will be for breakfast?” he asked in a small voice.
Leila took another breath— and then another. “It will be a surprise,” she said. “You wait and see.”
Blinking, Sam nodded just enough for her to see. Hunched in the blanket next to him, Mattie remained silent. Her eyes were closed, the lids faintly blue. Only the occasional quiver gave away that she was still conscious. She was definitely past caring about the empty promises Leila couldn’t help but make.
Why do I even still make them? Because these were her children. She was supposed to be able to take care of them. And she’d always managed to do so, as hard as it had sometimes been. Until now.
As Leila closed the door of the woodstove and sank to the bare wooden floor beside it, she could no longer lie to herself. The thought unrolled across her mind once more and wedged itself in a fierce headache behind her eyes. We’re not going to make it through another night.
For the past four days, the children had subsisted on the meager supplies Clifford had left them —really only enough for one proper meal— and the few nuts and bulbs she had been able to forage from the woods around them. Leila herself had eaten next to nothing. She had ceased to feel hunger pangs.
In her desperate struggle to keep the children alive from one moment to the next, her world had shrunk to little more than this tiny circle of comparative warmth around the stove and the whirling snow globe of deadly white just outside the thin walls of the shack. Every time she thought to venture a little further from the shack in hopes of finding other habitation, another snowstorm hit. At this point, she was too weak to walk any further than a few steps outside the door, storm or no storm.
Looking again at Sam, Leila watched with a soul-deep pain as he fought mightily to control his wobbling chin. A big tear slid down his freckled cheek and disappeared into the course blanket. Beside him, Mattie let out a feeble, shuddering sigh.
“Please, dear God…”
With the last of her strength, Leila scooted across the floor to join her children. She pulled them into her arms, pressing them to her heart. Please, dear God, at least save these innocent children. Send an angel.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Sammy’s head on her shoulder and Mattie’s stick-thin figure against her chest, Leila tried to remember all of the miracles she had ever learned growing up under her mother’s tutelage. Her mother had read the Bible every day, right up to the day she died, and for as long as Leila had been young enough to be bid to listen, she had read it to her.
“You sent an angel to feed the prophet Elijah,” she whispered into the frosty air. “Can you not send one to feed these little children?” Her mind was growing blurry with the desire to simply sink down with her children in her arms and sleep. To slip away from this world of toil and pain. But she couldn’t do that. Not until she had wrestled with God to secure these innocents’ salvation.
“You love children,” she reminded God, her head drooping to rest against the top of Mattie’s. “You said, Let the little children come unto me…”
What if He wants them to come to Him in heaven? The thought rose unbidden in her mind, and she shook it away, fighting to rouse herself from the stupor that filled her body like slow-moving molasses. Not yet, Lord. They should have a chance to live.
How she wanted them to live, and not only live but be happy. She had fought for it every day of their lives ‘til now. It seemed such a waste to watch it slip away. With her eyes still closed, Leila let herself see the visions she had so often conjured for herself when the oppression of days grew almost too hard for her to bear. She told herself she would bear it as much as she could to keep the weight from settling too hard on the shoulders of her children.
She envisioned Mattie, strong and smiling, wearing a new, red woolen dress and a warm, heavy shawl. She saw her growing up, becoming a confident young woman, reading and learning and maybe eventually falling in love and marrying— raising her own family.
And she saw Sammy, his fair head thrown back as he laughed with abandon, as he had so easily done before the rigors of the trail and Clifford’s constant verbal abuse had drained away his bubbling energy. She saw him eating good, wholesome food, as much as he wanted, enough for a growing boy. Because he would grow— strong and straight and quick.
“Let the children live,” Leila whispered as her breathing slowed. “That’s all I ask.”
The slough of the snow sweeping around the shack. The whisper of the pines as they leaned near. Leila drifted and listened and waited for an answer. The night deepened, and the fire burned low in the woodstove.
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What a tease! Brought tears to my eyes, just with the first chapter.
I love what you gave us and want more. So glad you are submitting it soon to Amazon.
I’m already feeling heartbroken for this family, no food, no heat, no hope. A mother praying for her children.
You have set the stage very well. I think you have described the situation so the reader can picture it in their mind and feel the despair the little family has in their situation. I can’t wait to read the rest of the story.