Utah, 1864
Things were going well. More than well, in fact. The man in charge – who insisted on folks calling him Sir – sat on a nearby veranda, propped up his boots on the lopsided wooden railing, and watched the town Holy Loft burn.
The word town wasn’t right, not really. Village would work better, or perhaps hamlet. Holy Loft was meant to indicate a place perched on a hill that boasted a particularly godly set of inhabitants, but it sounded silly.
It was late in the evening, late enough for the sky to be dark, and the snow was still falling. The stuff was calf-deep on the ground already, deeper yet in the corners, and hung in the air, getting thicker and thicker. In places where they’d set fires, there were circles of melting snow and bare ground. No danger of the fire spreading, then.
The gang was doing well. From his vantage point, he could see them all – clustering together, moving through the town in loose, focused knots. The local bank, such as it was, had already been ransacked, along with whatever treasures the locals stored in their houses. Livestock, tools, and supplies would be properly categorized and removed.
Merry Christmas, Holy Loft, Sir thought with a wry chuckle. He withdrew a hip flask, a pretty silver thing with a rose carved on the side, from his pocket, held it up as if giving a toast, and took a hefty sip. A man needed something warming on a night like this.
Was it Christmas Day today? No, not yet, if he remembered rightly. Days blended into each other when a person was on the run. There were a few days left till Christmas, and if the gang were going to make it through the winter, they’d need whatever Holy Loft had to offer. Most of the locals had sensibly fled, and the few who’d resisted had been neatly dealt with.
Sir didn’t think much about that, nor did he feel guilty about it. Guilt was a bad idea. Sullied the mind, it did, and made a man all confused. Best to avoid it. Commit to a course and have done with it.
A movement caught Sir’s eye, the bright white of an apron flashing through the darkness toward the woods. He stiffened, shoving the hipflask back into his pocket.
“You see that?” he bellowed to the man who was supposed to be guarding the horses. The man – boy, really – was spindly and grubby, shivering heartily in his thin clothes, and foolishly had his back to the woods. He spun around toward the woods, blinking owlishly.
They both saw the woman then.
She was poised at the edge of the forest, one hand resting against a tree trunk, leaning against it to catch her breath.
Her other hand rested on her belly, rounded and jutting out before her. Sir knew how that belly weighed on her in more ways than one.
The boy guarding the horses goggled up at Sir. “What should we do, Sir? Maybe she’s just stretching her legs.”
He snarled at the boy, not bothering to point out the stupidity of that. What pregnant woman went to stretch her legs at this hour of night in this weather beside a burning town that was in the process of being ransacked?
He leaped down the steps, two at a time, and shoved past the boy.
“You want the horses, Sir?”
“Can’t take the damn horses into the forest, not in this weather. Move!”
The boy moved. When Sir shouted, people jumped. Always.
He caught a glimpse of the woman; her pale face turned their way, her hair tucked up under an old-fashioned mobcap, a shawl wrapped around her head, shoulders, and chest, desperately trying to keep warm.
She shouldn’t be out in this weather.
“Hey!” he bellowed. “Where you going?”
She turned tail and fled, plunging into the woods. Swearing to himself, Sir dived after her.
If he’d thought the night was cold, the forest was even colder. Ice-laden branches slapped him in the face, and leafless branches jabbed him in the side. The snow was easily knee-deep here, so the going was hard. Still, if it was hard for him, it was twice as hard for her.
He saw her then, in a sliver of moonlight, plowing her way desperately through the snow. She reached a ridge, which allowed her to climb up higher, standing only ankle-deep in the snow instead.
“Don’t you move a damn muscle, girl!” he thundered. “What do you think …”
He reached the base of the ridge and trailed off. Instead of fleeing, the woman had stood her ground, and was currently staring down at him. Sir found himself staring up at her and her pistol, leveled directly at his face.
Not close enough to grab, mind you, but certainly close enough to take off his head if the trigger was pulled. He didn’t recognize the gun, but she held it confidently enough.
“Well, I’ll be darned,” he said softly. “You sure have learned a thing or two, haven’t you?”
She paled, but her hand didn’t wobble. “I’m going, Sir.”
He didn’t miss the mockery in her voice when she used his nickname.
“You’re going nowhere.” He responded shortly. “You ain’t going to use that gun on me.”
She narrowed her gaze, and he heard the safety click off the gun. It was an all too familiar sound and not one he particularly liked to hear.
“You think not?” she responded crisply. “I am going, and you won’t stop me.”
“You won’t get far in your condition,” he responded, nodding at her swollen belly. “Where do you think you’ll go? There’s nowhere for you to go.”
She didn’t flinch. Sir knew her well enough to guess that she would have weighed up all the outcomes in her mind. Her overthinking had got them out of many a scrape in the past.
“That’s my problem to figure out, not yours,” she said coolly. “When it was just us, I was willing to take a chance. But now I’ve got somebody else to think about.”
Sir was on the brink of asking who when he saw her hand curl around her belly. He snorted.
“I knew that damn baby would do more harm than good. You can’t go anywhere tonight, and that’s final.”
She drew in a breath. “I’m not asking your permission. If you take one step forward, I’ll put a bullet in your head. Just wait and see if I don’t.”
“The second you fire that gun, my men will come swarming into these woods. They wouldn’t dare lay a finger on you when I’m alive, but I reckon you’ll get different treatment when I’m dead.”
She shuddered, and Sir pressed his advantage.
“Look. You’re happy with us, aren’t you? You ain’t kept prisoner. You’re free. You like this life,” he wheedled, trying for a smile. It was not returned.
The woman shook her head, unmoved. “I’ve got to go. And you’re going to stand right there until I’m out of sight. I’d ask you to let me go, but I know you won’t. Stay away from me, you hear? Stay away from us. I’ve had enough.”
She took a step backward, then another, then another. Sir knew he should try something, should dive forward and smack the gun out of her hand, and maybe give her a few slaps to teach her a lesson.
He didn’t. For all his confidence, Sir wasn’t that convinced that she wouldn’t pull the trigger. If she killed him and the gang found out, she was as good as dead, but that wouldn’t help him much.
So he stood there, his breath clouding in front of him in the icy air, and watched her back away. It was hard to tell when her pale face and dark skirts faded into the shadows of the forest, only that one eyeblink she was there, sort of, and the next eyeblink she wasn’t.
Cursing to himself, Sir leaped up onto the ridge, darting over to where she’d gone. It was no use, of course.
Back at the veranda – which had once belonged to the mayor, he was told – the boy left to guard the horses was slouching in Sir’s seat. He leaped up when he saw Sir approaching, cheeks going red.
“The girl’s run off,” Sir spat out. “Get the others and search the forest for her. Now!”
The boy obeyed, but Sir knew it was too late. The subject of the girl was a touchy one in the gang, to say nothing of the baby. She was gone, and he wouldn’t find her again tonight. Maybe not tomorrow, either.
Rage bubbled up inside him, and Sir barged his way into the house. It was easy enough; the hinges were already bust. He found himself in a parlor, pretty and well-arranged. He started by sweeping all the cutesy china ornaments off the mantelpiece and crushing them beneath his boots. Chubby-cheeked children, kittens, puppies, and tiny china houses, all were ground to powder. He kicked a delicate side table, quickly reducing it to splintered kindling, and turned on a larger coffee table that resisted his kicks a little better.
“Goddamn it!” he roared, rage soaring and boiling inside him. “How the hell did a pregnant girl get the best of me? How?”
Chapter One
Salt Lake City, Utah, 1888
Jake stared down at the blank piece of paper sitting on his desk. The piece of paper stared right back. Accusingly. Empty.
He picked up a pencil and let the nib hover over the paper, hoping that the motion would somehow force his brain to think of something.
Nope.
He let the pencil fall with a clatter and dropped his face into his hands with a groan.
It didn’t help that evidence of his previous success surrounded him. His own book – leatherbound and embossed with the title on the cover – glared up at him from pride of place on the mantelpiece.
He’d called his novel Valerie’s Trials, which had been more successful than he’d ever dreamed. Men and women alike adored the plucky heroine, Valerie, and followed her breathlessly through her adventures and tragedies alike. On the advice of his agent, Jake had left the book open-ended so that Valerie could be revisited. At the time, he’d had more ideas than he could count for his second book. Where had those ideas gone?
Maybe I buried them with my mother, Jake thought, and a knot of misery rose in his throat. The books prominently displayed on the mantelpiece, along with cuttings of the articles he’d written for various newspapers, had all been carefully preserved by none other than Mrs. Christine Drybeck herself, esteemed widow, devoted mother to her only son, pillar of the community. She was mourned by everyone.
Her funeral had been that morning.
Jake hadn’t cried. He should have cried. He wanted to cry desperately, but the tears wouldn’t come. It was the strangest sensation. It was easy to describe grief in his books – he’d done a marvelous job of describing Valerie’s grief at losing her beloved guardian and godfather, the critics had said – but somehow, when it came to himself, the whole business was incomprehensible. It was like being crushed from the inside out, shaking the hands of friends and neighbors and accepting condolences, watching the dirt pile on his mother’s coffin as if it was happening to somebody else.
“Have you read Valerie’s Trials? Oh, you must read it. Here, have a copy. My son wrote it, you know. My son, Jacob. Yes, we all call him Jake. He’s tremendously talented. I read the book myself in a single day; I couldn’t put it down. I keep spares so everyone can read the story. He is such a wonderful writer.”
He could hear his mother’s voice in his head now, tinged with pride.
Jake would happily have murdered his poor Valerie with his own hands if it would have brought back his mother.
But he couldn’t, and it wouldn’t, so Jake shoved away the blank pages and rose abruptly from his seat. He rose too quickly, and his chair toppled back, banging on the floor.
He stood where he was for a moment, breathing heavily, until a gentle tap came on the door.
A wide-eyed girl of about fifteen peered in, strands of red hair escaping from under her cap to frame a freckled face.
“Mr. Drybeck? Is everything okay?” the girl asked in a hushed tone, twisting her apron between her fingers. “I heard a crash.”
Jake swallowed the painful rush of emotions and smiled at the girl.
“I just upset a chair, Thomasin. Nothing to worry about.”
Thomasin was a girl hired from the nearby village of Torrent Medley, here to cook, clean, and keep old Mrs. Drybeck company as her health faded. Mrs. Drybeck had enjoyed her company very much, which meant that when Jake had to go into the big city for days and weeks to consult with his agent, he knew his mother was in good hands. He wasn’t sure what would happen to Thomasin once he left. One thing was sure, however. Jake could not bear to stay in Medley now that his mother was gone. What was the point?
Thomasin eyed him nervously, shifting from foot to foot.
“You … you don’t look well, sir.”
My mother has just died, Jake wanted to bellow. Instead, he swallowed hard and forced a smile.
“I don’t feel well. You can go home, Thomasin. Actually, I insist that you go home. Look, it’s snowing.”
The girl’s gaze flitted past him, lingering on the square of gray sky in the window. Sure enough, fluffy snowflakes floated down to the powdery mounds on the ground. It would be a difficult winter, everyone said so. Jake was eager to get the house sorted out and get back to the big city before he found himself snowed in.
“You should take some time off over Christmas,” Jake continued, smiling encouragingly. “It’ll be Christmas Day in a week. You deserve some time off. Go on, go home. I’ll be okay.”
Thomasin eyed him disbelievingly. “I left a pie in the kitchen, Mr. Drybeck. You should eat something.”
He flinched. That was the sort of thing any parent would tell their child, and he’d heard it from his mother more often than he could count. Thomasin didn’t wait to say more. She disappeared from the doorway, and he heard her pulling on heavy snow boots, cloak, and gloves at the door. There was a pause, then she clumped back down the hallway, appearing again in the doorway.
“You should keep yourself busy, Mr. Drybeck,” Thomasin said quietly. “My Ma said that. She said that grief is a nasty thing, but it’s good if you can keep busy. You spend too much time sitting in here.”
“I am writing,” Jake shot back, taken aback by the sudden impertinence.
Thomasin shook her head. “I know that you aren’t. You haven’t written anything since Mrs. Drybeck died.”
She didn’t wait to speak more, disappearing down the hallway. He heard the door open and close, letting in a gust of icy wind that blew its way to his study and made the fire gutter. A moment later, he saw Thomasin’s small figure trudge across the white landscape.
She’s right, you know, he reflected, then immediately refused to dwell on the thought. He turned to stoke up the fire and accidentally caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror.
It was not a pleasant sight.
Jake was comfortably aware that he was – usually – a handsome young man. He was twenty-five and had dark blond hair and large green eyes, and many people remarked on his success as a writer for his age. His face was well-shaped, and he kept a well-trimmed beard that suited him nicely. He was of average height and shape and took care of his appearance.
At least, he would take care of his appearance ordinarily. At that moment, Jake’s hair was greasy and uncombed, sticking to his scalp. His beard was untrimmed and disheveled, his clothes dirty and needing changing. His black mourning coat, the one he’d worn to the funeral, had been torn off and tossed into the corner of the room, wadded up and forgotten. He was pale, looking sallower and sicklier than ever, and purple thumbprint circles were beneath his eyes.
Mrs. Drybeck had jokingly remarked that Thomasin had a fancy for him – on account of being fifteen years old and therefore having a fancy for every young man she saw – but it was easy to see why she’d changed her mind in recent months, bless the child.
Jake scrubbed his hands over his face.
Need to keep myself busy, he thought. She’s right. That’s what I need.
It was clear that writing was not the way to go. He hadn’t written a single word since his mother’s death, and his agent had accepted none of his ideas in any case. The letters from the publishing house were getting increasingly sharp and less fawning. Valerie’s Trials would fade from the public imagination soon enough, he was warned, and then Jake would be left high and dry.
Stop, he scolded himself. Don’t think about that.
He mentally reviewed the house and what he could do in each room. Going into his mother’s old room was out of the question. A tearful Thomasin had tidied the room and gone through some of Christine’s things, but the fact remained that it was Jake’s responsibility to deal with the rest of it if he wanted to sell the house soon.
The idea of rifling through his mother’s things made him feel queasy.
Take small steps, he warned himself. Then, inspiration struck.
The attic, of course. There were boxes of things up there – junk, his mother had called them – and sorting through them would give him something to do. It would give him a reason to postpone the more painful tasks waiting for him.
Jake cast one last glance down at the blank sheets of paper, now resting accusingly beside the tome of Valerie’s Trials, and pointedly turned his back on his work.
The attic it was, then.
*
The Drybeck house was one of the largest in town, without being showy.
It had two good-sized floors, plus the attic, and Jake had grown up comfortably aware of what a pleasant place he lived in. Downstairs was dominated by a large, modern kitchen – Thomasin’s domain, mostly, where they only ventured for their meals – as well as a study, which doubled as a library and a good-sized parlor. Upstairs were the bedrooms: his own room, Christine’s room, a spare room for guests, and a neat box room at the end where Thomasin had stayed overnight occasionally.
At the end of the upstairs hallway was a tiny spiral staircase, mostly covered by a curtain because Christine thought it looked unsightly. With some difficulty, Jake squeezed his broad shoulders up the narrow stairs and crawled out of a trapdoor at the top.
This was the attic. He had vague memories of playing up here as a child until Christine deemed it too dangerous and suggested he play in the garden instead. The roof sloped sharply, but even at the apex of the point, Jake could not stand upright. It was all bare boards and spiderwebs up here, with boxes stacked haphazardly here and there. Jake placed his hands on his hips and surveyed the sight.
As expected, it was all junk. He noticed a dusty, broken old hobbyhorse in the corner that had once belonged to him, along with notebooks filled with childish scribbles and drawings. His, too, no doubt. He spotted a tiny, rose-colored teddy bear on the floor and was suddenly struck by nostalgia. That teddy bear had been a present in the toe of his stocking one Christmas if his memory served him correctly.
Agatha, Jake’s memory supplied. I named the bear Agatha. Aggie for short. Mother laughed and laughed when she heard it. She thought it was a funny name for a bear.
He picked up the bear, brushing dust off its matted coat until its black bead eyes gleamed again. He would keep the bear. Jake slipped the bear into his pocket and looked around for a box to open. His eyes and nose were stinging, although that could be due to the dust up here.
He spotted a large box with books scrawled on the side, and his expression brightened.
Kneeling beside the box, Jake pried it open, coughing in the sudden cloud of dust and spiderwebs, and peered inside. The light in the attic was bad, despite the fact it was barely two o’clock in the afternoon, and he resolved to bring a lantern next time. The only light came in through a small, slanted window rapidly filling with powdery snow. He had to squint to see the titles of the books.
Jake snatched up one book, the title of which had almost faded away. The adventures of someone or another and his memory assured him that he had read it as a child.
Perhaps I can find some inspiration here, he thought. Mother always said that I should read more books to get inspiration. She wanted me to read old novels, and perhaps she was right.
He set aside the adventures of whoever and rifled through the other books. There were leather-bound hardbacks and dog-eared paperbacks almost falling apart. The books were surprisingly well preserved, but none were unfamiliar to him.
He spotted what looked like a notebook, wedged down alongside the neatly stacked books, and pulled it out. It was a thin book bound in expensive, supple leather, and a single name was embossed on the cover.
Noelle.
Jake sank back onto his heels, intrigued. He didn’t remember a book like that on the shelves when he was younger. He’d thought it was a notebook, but with the name embossed on the cover, perhaps it was a novel. The old stories his mother had preferred had titles like that: Camilla, Cecilia, Pamela, Belinda, and so on.
Then he opened the book and saw he’d been wrong again. The latter half of the book’s pages were blank, but the first half was covered in close-packed, spidery writing. Each page was dated at the top. With a flinch of surprise, Jake realized he was holding a diary.
Whose diary? Not his mother’s. Christine had never kept a diary.
Curious despite himself, Jake turned to the very first page. The date was badly smudged, but he could just about read the year. 1864.
Over twenty-four years ago.
He closed the book, feeling a pang of guilt. It was somebody’s diary. He had no right to read it.
But why was it here? Why had his mother hidden it away?
And, more importantly, who was Noelle?
Jake didn’t know anyone named Noelle. He told himself that repeatedly, reviewing the names of the locals in an attempt to jog his memory. But there was something about the name, something familiar …
Stop it, he scolded himself, rising to his feet. You only think there’s a connection because the name is Noelle, and it’s almost Christmas. You’re looking for a secret, for some mystery to make you think about your Valerie and take your mind off the fact Mother is gone forever.
At that thought, misery welled up in his throat, threatening to choke him. Jake’s hands clenched on the diary, knuckles turning white. He ought to toss it in the box again and forget about it. It was just a dull old diary, after all. Nothing in there he’d want to read.
Downstairs, somebody knocked on the door.
No, somebody hammered on the door as if with the handle of a walking stick.
Jake jumped, banging his head on the ceiling, and swore to himself. It was probably one of the locals bearing gifts, food, and condolences. Everybody wanted to mourn Christine, and he knew he had no right to deny them that, even if he himself wanted nothing more than to be left alone.
“Just coming!” he called, as if there was any chance the well-wisher on his doorstep would hear. He shoved the diary into his pocket alongside Agatha, the bear, and began to navigate the narrow climb back downstairs.
Outside, the snow began to fall heavier, filling up the slanted attic window until the glass was all snow and no sky.
“Yuletide Pages of Love” is an Amazon Best-Selling novel, check it out here!
Rachel Sutton, mourning her mother’s recent death, embarks on a quest to unveil the secrets of her past. In her search for roots, she encounters Jake, a reclusive author struggling with grief too. When Rachel discovers a hidden diary chronicling her mother’s untold story, she enlists Jake’s help in unlocking the secrets of her heritage. However, Rachel soon finds herself drawn to Jake, blurring the lines between their quest for truth and the unexpected emergence of a tender connection.
Can Rachel unravel the mysteries of her lineage and find solace in both her history and the budding emotions with Jake?
In the wake of his mother’s passing, Jake Drybeck grapples with a creativity crisis that leaves his world in disarray. Everything changes when Rachel enters his life and together, they embark on a quest for answers, forging a powerful bond. Within this crucible of challenges, Jake experiences an unforeseen transformation, discovering unexpected inspiration in Rachel—a muse he never anticipated.
Can Jake find inspiration in the midst of danger, and will the budding connection with Rachel be the key to unlocking his heart?
As Jake and Rachel face the external perils blocking their path, they also grapple with the internal struggles of their hearts. With their hearts intertwined, they draw strength from the beauty surrounding them, forging a path toward a future that defies the odds. Can their connection withstand the challenges that test its strength, offering solace in the midst of the perilous unknown?
“Yuletide Pages of Love” is a historical western romance novel of approximately 80,000 words. No cheating, no cliffhangers, and a guaranteed happily ever after.
Hello there, dear readers! I hope you enjoyed the preview. Let me know what you think on your comments below. I’ll be waiting! Thank you 🙂