“Easy, boy,” Mal murmured in a soft voice. “No reason to get worked up. I ain’t gonna hurt nuthin’.”
In the dwindling light coming through one of the windows, the horse watched him with big, brown eyes that made Mal’s neck itch, but the beast quit his bangin’. Malachi eased past, keeping his gaze on the horse, not liking the way he stared at him. Down his long horse nose. All snooty. Like the shopkeeper’s wife who used to shoo him with her broom every time she caught him going through the garbage bins behind the store. As if he were a rat or some other kind of vermin.
Caught up in his thoughts, Mal didn’t see the shovel until his shoe collided with it. It toppled to the floor with a clatter that echoed off the rafters. Mal froze, his heart thumping harder than a blacksmith’s hammer.
A hinge creaked. He spun to face the sound. On his left. Toward the front. Between him and the door.
Footsteps.
Malachi snatched the fallen shovel and pulled it back, ready to strike. He’d smash and run. As soon as the farmer showed himself.
A figure emerged from inside a front stall. A tiny figure with round green eyes and a halo of curly black hair standing out around her head. Pale skin. Plump, rosy cheeks.
Mal slowly dropped his arms and set the shovel aside. There’d be no smashing and running. Not when God had sent him an angel.
“Who are you?” the angel asked, her childish voice holding only curiosity. No accusation.
Mal couldn’t say a word.
The angel didn’t ask another question. Just stared back at him. Only then did Mal remember he didn’t have a shirt on. He circled his arms around his middle, trying to hide his scrawny, naked chest. He didn’t want to offend the angel. Or have her see the bones that showed through his skin. A man had his pride, after all.
“You must be cold,” she said at last. Then she started unbuttoning her coat, and before he knew what she was about, she had the thing off and was wrapping it around his shoulders.
The heavy wool felt like heaven, still warm from her body. Heat seeped into his frost-nipped skin, thawing him until he thought he might melt like candle wax in an oven.
“Don’t just stand there gawking like you’ve never seen a girl before,” she demanded. “Put your arms in the sleeves.”
His angel scowled at him, her lower lip protruding in an exasperated pout as she lectured him. Then, because he obviously wasn’t moving fast enough for her liking, she reached out and did it for him. Peeled his arms apart and stuffed them in the too-short coat sleeves.
“You’re near to frozen,” she complained when her hand first touched his wrist, but the observation didn’t cause her to slow down at all. She just reached for the buttons next, did them up, then started rubbing his arms up and down through the sleeves, the friction heating his skin even more. He stared down at the top of her head while she worked. She only came up to about his chin. Tiny little thing, his angel. Bossy, too.
She pulled away after a moment. “Hmm. This isn’t good enough.” She stalked over to a sawhorse situated near the tack wall, threw the bridle that had been sitting atop it to the ground, and grabbed hold of the striped saddle blanket draped across its middle.
“Sit down,” she ordered as she dragged the thick blanket over to him. Once he complied, she flopped the blanket onto his lap. She stared at him again, all thoughtful-like. Her gaze hesitated at the ends of the coat sleeves, where his wrists and hands hung uncovered. “Oh! My mittens!” A grin broke out across her face and she bounded away, into the stall that she’d emerged from earlier.
She hurried back and thrust a pair of bright red mittens at him. “Here. Put these on.” Her face clouded again for a minute, then cleared. “And my scarf!” She unwrapped the long knitted strip from around her neck and twined it about his, wrapping it up over his ears and head, as well. “That’s better.” The triumph in her voice made him smile.
She examined him again, the frown lines reappearing above her pert little nose. He was beginning to feel a bit like one of those snowmen the kids liked to build by the schoolhouse when the weather turned wintry. He half expected her to fetch a carrot and jab it against his nose. Not that he would have minded. A carrot would taste a fair sight better than cow corn.
“Your feet,” she said at last. “There’s still snow crusted in your laces. Aunt Henry is always fussing at me to get out of my wet boots and stockings before my feet shrivel. If you were walking around in the snow out there, though, we’ve got more to worry about than wrinkled toes.”
Aunt Henry? What kind of person was that?
The girl glanced up at him. “Old Man Tarleton got lost in a blizzard a couple years back, and his feet got so cold, they froze solid. Three of his toes turned black and fell off.” She reported that grisly piece of news with a decidedly non-angelic degree of enthusiasm. “So we better get those shoes off.”