Noble's Way Read Free Page A

with snow, and his hair mussed by the wind. The sight of him was the most comforting part of this move. She was confident Noble would find a place for them before the snow turned to blistering cold.
    Fleta mentally calculated the date. It was December 24, 1864, Christmas Eve. She sighed as she glanced down at the swells of the saddle. When she was little girl in Tennessee, the house was always warm and filled with the smell of popcorn and molasses candy on this day. There were always toys to open Christmas morning, usually small animals her father had whittled from wood.
    Then Wilbourne Corey had come into her life. The tall quiet man, six years her senior had come to court her. Wilbourne had not been a rake or braggart. Fleta’s mother had often reminded her that Wilbourne was serious—a man of substance—he worked hard, and was not inclined to drink heavy or gamble. A pillar of a man, not a man to abandon her. Fleta felt a pang of conscience as she rode. Had she been the one to abandon Wilbourne?
    But her mother had not known of war and how it would drag a man away from his wife and son. Wilbourne had ignored her pleas and gone off for a bloody senseless war and left the two of them ... Fleta shivered under her coat. They might have starved if Noble had not come along. Since she’d had no word in three years, surely Wilbourne Corey had died for his cause.
    â€œFleta?” Noble asked, his gray horse huffing great clouds of steam beside her. “Are you all right? You worry me.” He looked intently into her eyes.
    â€œI’m fine, this snow is upsetting me,” she said with a brittle smile. She watched Noble lift Luke from the pack horse.
    â€œSpotted Horse says we’re close to wherever they’re taking us. But we need to make camp ’til the snow lets up.”
    â€œBut,” she began, her throat knotted with conflicting emotions as she stood beside the horse; her legs weak from poor circulation. “It’s Christmas Eve, Noble.”
    He blinked and pushed back his hair. “Is it?”
    â€œYes and I don’t have a thing for anyone,” Fleta lamented. How could she make the holiday up to Luke? She practically fell in Noble’s arms. He held her tight to comfort her.
    â€œI’ll make it up to you soon, Fleta. I promise, ” he said softly, concealing his frustration.
    She sniffed and tried to regain her composure. “I’m sorry, Noble. It’s the damned snow. Where’s Luke?”
    â€œHe’s right here,” he gestured at his side.
    She leaned her forehead on Noble’s shoulder. Tears and melted snowflakes mingled on her face. It was the snow that had depressed her so.
    Christmas day arrived under a blanket of low and threatening gray clouds. Fleta rose in a flurry of snow flakes that had fallen on the blankets she and Luke shared. Noble was studying something on the horizon, his breath escaping in steamy vapors. Then Fleta saw it, and hurried to stand with him. A small fort on a rise, less than a quarter mile away.
    â€œIs that the place?” she asked through chattering teeth.
    â€œYes.” He hugged her to his side. “Spotted Horse said it was empty.”
    â€œWho owns it?”
    â€œWe do.”
    â€œBut what if the army or the owners come back?”
    â€œI guess we’ll move out.” Noble twisted her around and put his cold hands to her cheeks and lowered his mouth to hers. His hard eager lips, hungry with desire, warmed her.
    She smiled. “We’ll call it McCurtain’s Fort.”
    â€œAll right,” Noble agreed, pleased with her name for the place. “Come on, we need to see the home the good Lord and the Osages have provided for us.”
    â€œMerry Christmas, Noble McCurtain,” Fleta said with a sad smile.
    â€œMerry Christmas, Fleta McCurtain,” he said before hurrying off to get the horses and stock.
    She stood alone. In that moment, in the middle of snowy