She glanced up to see heavyset Mr. Johansen peeking out from beneath his towel, smiling with interest. But even from this distance, she saw Mr. Smith withdraw. He drew in a ragged breath.

  His reaction took her aback. Perhaps it was selfish of her to show off her card. It must have cost a fortune and most folks couldn’t afford such luxuries. But she was thrilled and had only wanted to share its beauty.

  “Please thank your wife, too, Mr. Dodd, for the wonderful card.”

  While Mr. Dodd was leaving the shop, he fought to open the door against the snowstorm whipping down the street. Cool air bristled on her skin.

  Francis came racing down the hallway. “I’ve got time to help you with one more customer before I leave. I’ll cut Mr. Smith’s hair while you shave the other one, then that’ll leave you with Mr. Smith’s shave.”

  Melodie gently laughed. Francis made the men sound like potatoes who needed to be peeled as quickly as possible for dinner. “That’s fine. Then I’ll have time to do my own hair before the social begins.”

  Walking to the fireplace, Melodie threw on another spruce log. The sound of the sizzle brought a rush of remembrance. Of the first December she’d spent here on the prairies, with her first husband.

  The one regret she had was that they’d never made love.

  Maybe if she’d had Logan’s child, the pain of his absence would be duller.

  Two years ago on the evening of December twenty-fourth, it had also been the celebration of their wedding. During the lively reception, Logan and his Mountie detachment had been unexpectedly called to duty. No one had suspected the rustlers would strike during Christmas Eve, let alone a wedding reception. Logan had kissed her lightly on the lips and promised he’d come back to her within three hours.

  He’d promised.

  “I’ll be back in enough time to lift you off your feet and carry you to our bed, my love. Enough time to unbutton the beads of your wedding gown and slip it off your shoulders….”

  Poking the fire with a shaky hand, Melodie tore her thoughts away from melancholy history.

  She thought of Donald instead. Although he wasn’t Logan, he was a widower, too, and he’d shown her kindness and support in those agonizing months when she hadn’t wanted to go on.

  And Donald wasn’t a police officer like Logan had been. Donald would never be called away to duty. Donald would never disappear on her.

  Sighing, she turned back to her work. Francis was lifting her scissors to Mr. Smith’s shoulder-length hair. His booted feet were propped on a footstool, yet he looked uncomfortable. Some men weren’t used to the fuss of good hygiene. “Lean back and relax,” Francis urged. “Most of our customers enjoy their time here.”

  “No need to worry.” Middle-aged Mr. Johansen, the town’s best gardener and recent importer of Dutch tulips, mumbled from beneath his towel five feet away. “These women are good at their work. And speakin’ of Christmas, I’ve got a little gift for you both. Let me get them from my bag before you start my shave.”

  Melodie exchanged a giggle with Francis.

  The man returned and gave each woman a round object wrapped in tinfoil. It felt heavy in Melodie’s hands.

  “Is it a ball?” asked Francis.

  “It’s a fruit. An orange.”

  “How thoughtful.” Melodie unwrapped the precious gift. “I’ve heard of these. They grow in the American South.”

  “My son sent them from San Francisco.”

  “They’re like the lemons I sometimes have with my tea,” said Francis with delight. “It’s perfect.”

  “Thank you kindly,” said Melodie.

  “You best eat them within a few days,” said Mr. Johansen. “They tend to dry out.”

  Francis tugged on Mr. Smith’s shoulder to lean him back, then continued cutting his hair. “I’m not sure I can eat something sour while I’m still nursin’ Timmy.”

  Mr. Smith flinched in his chair. His brows flexed with surprise. His gaze, almost desperate, flew to Francis. “He’s your child?”

  “My first. Almost three months old. Bend your head down a little, sir, so I can trim the back.”

  Francis was done with his haircut two minutes before Melodie was finished with her customer. When the older man got up to pay, she helped him at the counter.

  “Good night, Melodie.” Francis barreled around behind her, bundled up in a beaver coat and strapped leather boots. “Boris is in the back cleanin’ up if you need him. He won’t leave until you leave, Melodie.” Francis was talking to her but looking pointedly at the stranger.

  Melodie smiled self-consciously but couldn’t bring herself to gauge Mr. Smith’s reaction. Francis was protective, but two women running a shop this late in the evening had to be.

  “Good night, Francis.”

  Francis picked up her little boy, placed the wriggling bundle inside her bulky fur coat, then left.

  Stepping to the door window, Melodie peered over the lace curtain and saw Francis’s husband, Eli, leaning on his cane, standing by the door across the street and around the corner as he waited. Melodie turned the door sign to Closed, then locked the latch. Turning back to the cozy, golden room, she rubbed her arms. It was finally heating up again.

  Mr. Smith removed the warm towel Francis had laid on his face before she’d left. “Does Francis live nearby? Will she be safe in this weather?”

  Melodie nodded, touched by his thoughtfulness. “Right across the street. My brother-in-law is waiting for her.”

  “Brother-in-law? Francis is your sister?”

  She nodded.

  He smiled gently, for the first time since entering her shop. She would have guessed that his smile would be lopsided from his injury, but it wasn’t.

  “You two look alike,” he said. “She must be the sister from Vancouver.”

  Melodie frowned. How had he known that? It was another indicator that she’d obviously cut his hair before. “I told Francis she didn’t have to come back to work so soon after Timmy was born, but she insisted on helping with the busy holiday season. We’ve been partners for a year and a half, and she’s stubborn about doing her fair share. Would you like to hold the hand mirror while I trim your beard? So you can follow what I’m doing?”

  “No,” he said quickly. Then more softly, almost apologetic, “No, thanks.”

  The poor man didn’t want to look at his face. She stepped awkwardly to the jar of combs, pulled out one and picked up her scissors. She shouldn’t have suggested it. What a terrible shame. He’d probably been a very handsome fellow at one time.

  “How much do you want me to trim?”

  He pondered the question for a moment. “Shave it all off.”

  “The beard, the mustache, everything?”

  He nodded, watching her reaction.

  “Sure thing.”

  She had to trim his beard with scissors first to make it easier for the straight blade, and worked without speaking, ever so conscious of the contact she made against his shoulder. He bristled with every accidental brush of her hand. His thighs shifted as he rearranged his feet on the footstool. And she felt suddenly shy.

  She’d been alone with a customer before, she told herself. She’d touched a hundred men, and their faces and their skin. She’d rubbed lotion into their necks. She’d been so close she could detect what soap they used. But this man…she gulped and glanced to the empty hallway. Where was Boris? She’d feel more comfortable with her hired man here.

  Rufus got up from his mat and sauntered across the pine floor. His paws clicked as he walked to their side, the sound mingling with the wind’s howl that was slapping against the windowpanes.

  Mr. Smith must have felt the fur beside his hand, for he reached out and patted the dog between the ears. Rufus closed his eyes, savoring the touch.

  “Is he yours?”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “Good dog.” He swallowed hard. “Your-your husband will be wondering why you’re so late this evening.”

  Melodie glanced down at the ring he was studying. Why was she so conscious of this man?

  Because he was close to her own age?

  Because he was bulkier and more intense than the other men she’d served today?

  “Donald Dawson is not my husband yet.”

  He brightened at her words. His mouth lifted at the corners and his shoulders straightened.

  “The wedding’s taking place on New Year’s Day.”

  She watched a play of emotions on the stranger’s face. “Dawson you said?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “But he’s—” He cut his words short.

  She stopped working, her scissors perched in midair, her focus on his wide brow. “He’s what?”

  He didn’t finish his sentence. “Is he still living beside your aunt’s boardinghouse? The place you used to stay?”

  “That he is.” She rolled down the collar at the back of his neck to gain access to his throat. Her cool fingertips brushed against his smooth hot skin. Her touch seemed to disturb him. It was part of her job to touch a man’s neck and face, yet…the contact had never felt this personal.

  “Do you know Donald?”

  “Not that well.” Mr. Smith shifted on the chair. “What made you pick that day for your wedding?”

  “A new year, a fresh new start.” She meant to say it in a cheerful tone, but it came out subdued. The sadness wasn’t as frequent as it had been in the beginning and she no longer had as many sleepless nights. But when the sadness came, it settled with a louder, more resounding thump.

  “How long have you been engaged?”

  For some unfathomable reason, the topic didn’t suit her. She rebalanced her weight from foot to foot. “A month.”

  He blinked.

  She tried to change the subject. “Are you back in town for Christmas to see family?”

  “I’m not sure I’ve got family to return to.”

  That, more than anything, affected her. She didn’t want to pry further, but she swallowed at the man’s obvious sorrow. Living in the West was hard. Many settlers lost their lives traveling across the drought-ridden, fly-infested prairies. She and Francis had arrived two summers ago themselves when their folks had passed away, aiming to help their only remaining relative, elderly Aunt Alice, with her boardinghouse.

  Francis had met Eli almost immediately and they moved to Vancouver, two weeks before Melodie had met Logan. After Eli’s mining accident, though, Melodie had convinced her sister and brother-in-law to return to Calgary. By working with Melodie in the shop, Francis could then help provide for the family.

  Melodie placed a comforting hand on Mr. Smith’s shoulder, over the towel wrapped around him. “I know what losing family is like.”

  He turned his head gently to her hand.

  The intimate gesture made her nerves tingle. It was getting too intimate between them.

  Stepping back, she whisked up a lather in her tin cup, thankful to break the touch between them.

  Taking out her straight razor, she leaned back from Mr. Smith as far as possible without seeming obvious, then scraped the hair above his lip, then alongside the scar. “I’m not hurting you, am I?”

  “No,” he murmured.

  She wondered who he was in the scheme of things, where he had come from, and what he thought about the important things in life.

  She finished with his cheeks and made her way toward his jaw. As her elbow fanned by his face, he closed his eyes. She scraped the white lather off one side, then reached above and over him to scrape the final patch from his good cheek.

  “Melodie.” His voice caught. “…my sweet Melodie…it’s me.”

  His clear blue eyes tugged open and he looked directly up at her. They froze, faces six inches apart. In one sweep, she took in the clean-shaven jaw and the short blond hair and a bolt of panic seized her. It couldn’t be!

  It couldn’t be him!

  She dropped her razor blade to the floor and screamed.

  CHAPTER 3

  “You’re a ghost!” Shaking from her fingertips to the roots of her scalp, Melodie barely felt the counter digging into her backside.

  He leaped up from his chair, arms outstretched but, luckily for him, keeping his distance. “I’m not a ghost. It’s me, Logan.”

  Her muscles clenched, ready for battle. “Logan died!”

  “I didn’t die, Melodie.” His blue eyes grew moist. The scar on his cheek tugged as he spoke. “It’s me.” He stepped toward her, brown flannel collar still folded under at his neck, tight shoulders bearing down on her like a moving mountain.

  She screamed again.

  Boris, heavy and out of breath, thundered into the room with unlaced boots pounding the hollow floor. He bellowed at the stranger. “What is it?”

  The stranger took a step back, planting both palms in the air in a gesture of surrender. The dog sniffed his boots as his towel dangled from his shoulders.

  Boris eyed him with suspicion. The stranger ripped the towel from around his neck and wiped off the remaining streaks of shaving lather.

  “Ma’am, has he hurt you?”

  Dazed, she looked into Boris’s round pale face. She swallowed rapidly and shook her head. Then she turned back to the audacious man who claimed to be her long-lost husband.

  “How?” Her voice crackled. “Whoever you are, how can you explain this?”

  The stranger’s gaze didn’t waver. His voice was firm. “They took me with them. They’d planned it all along. The Grayveson gang knew I was a veterinarian. They knew I had a skill with horses and cattle. They put a gun to my head and they made me ride with them.”

  Boris spanned the room to stand protectively in front of Melodie. “Listen, stranger, you best get out of here.”

  In the year and a half she’d been in business, this was the first time she’d ever physically needed protection.

  A muscle flinched in the stranger’s cheek. “I’m not here to harm anyone.”

  Melodie remained silent, grappling with the possibility of his claim. She clutched at her apron.

  His voice did sound like…Logan’s. Sagging under the weight of her shock, her body dipped forward against the countertop and her heart squeezed inside her ribs.

  Boris crept forward. “Are you dim-witted, mister? I said take your things and get out of here.”

  The stranger looked past Boris’s threatening stance to her again, waiting for her response.

  She couldn’t give one. It couldn’t be. They’d searched for Logan for a full year. The superintendent of the Mounties had telegraphed every town between here and the U.S. border, hoping to receive even the tiniest scrap of information.

  He was dead.

  Boris made another move toward him. Seeming to come to a conclusion of his own, the stranger blinked and lowered his haunted eyes to the floor. Weakened by her lack of response, he staggered his way toward the fireplace, then pulled his fur coat off the peg and picked up his sack.

  Laying one open hand on the wall beside the door, he held the knob with the other.

  She sucked in some air.

  His hand looked familiar. The long, smooth fingers, the splay of his knuckles, the way he placed his thumb…his wavy blond hair, his full lips…the pointy chin. And his blue, blue eyes.

  “Melodie, do you remember the last promise I made to you?”

  She gasped.

  “I kissed you on the lips. I promised I’d return to you in three hours’ time…to help you with…” He glanced down to her blouse. He couldn’t finish the words.

  To help her with her gown.

  She watched his eyes brim with sentiment while she agonized.

  The door latch clicked. He pulled it open. A slice of the weather filtered in, snow gusting around his dejected face. “I’m sorry, Melodie…I’m so sorry.”

  “Wait,” she whispered, almost unable to bear the pain. “Logan…please don’t go.”

  She reacted with instinct, without thinking. Racing into his arms, she collided with his muscled chest. She buried her face in his shirt, wrapped herself in his arms, let her heart thrum against his, didn’t exhale until she’d filled her lungs with him…not realizing what was happening until he tugged her arm to separate their bodies to kiss her.

  It alarmed her. Stumbling back, she couldn’t see his face for her blur of tears. “No,” she said to the kiss. She tried to make sense of things. Maybe she was dreaming. Her trembling hand shot to her collar. She whispered, “No, I can’t…never again.”

  Devastation rocked Logan. For one heavenly moment, he’d believed the chasm of space and time that had separated him and Melodie hadn’t mattered. But as he followed behind her and Boris down the cold hallway, a knot quivered in his gut.

  He feared he was two years too late.

  Boris led them into her private parlor. A roaring fire blazed from the fireplace of one log wall, a horsehair sofa and leather wing chair filled another, and Melodie’s charcoal sketch paper lay open on the pine desk.

  The room obviously doubled as her bedroom. A single bed in the corner sat covered with a white down tick.

  It was a new house, built since his absence. Logan recognized nothing in it—not the photographs on the wall of Melodie and her sister, not the pewter vase on her desk, not the feather quill pen.

  With an urgent fever, his gaze raced around the room. Hadn’t she kept anything of theirs? Even a small trinket, a symbol of something of his from the past? He’d been by no means a wealthy man, but he’d owned a few personal items.

  He saw nothing.

  Boris stood with a menacing hand on the open door, assessing Logan but speaking to Melodie. “Are you sure you’ll be all right, ma’am?”

  Logan knew he shouldn’t be offended; Boris didn’t know him. He should be comforted by the fact that Melodie had such good protection. And he was. He was. But right now, fury pumped through him and primed his fists, ready to pounce in defense. He was Melodie’s husband!

  Sid Grayveson was responsible. He’d fractured their marriage and he would pay for everything he and his vicious gang had done.

  Melodie nodded at Boris with obvious discomfort.

  Her voice shook as she removed her apron. “I can’t believe it’s you,” she said to Logan. Then she answered Boris. “I’ll be fine. And please, don’t mention this to anyone until I…until I speak with you in the morning.”

 

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