AN: Here we go with the next installment of 'The West's New Hope'! This story is actually set between our first story and The Empire Gang Strikes Back, detailing how Han and Leia go from the tentative but optimistic couple we see at the end of WNH to the couple driven apart by fear and miscommunication in EGSB.
I cannot begin without thanking the wonderful justinegraham and the irreplaceable alderaanallday for their fantastic and speedy beta reading. You ladies are so wonderful and I appreciate you so very much! And of course, graciecatfamilyband/imnothere24 who helped a little bit. More than a little bit. A lot bit. Actually, she talked me out of deleting this entire story one night, so if you like it, thank her for that. Thanks for everything, mom [heart].
And without further ado, "Montana Winter."
Chapter 1
Fair Trade
The August sun was bright, and the prairie breeze warm and sweet as it blew through the open door of the cabin. The residents of Falcon Ranch had fallen into a comfortable routine now that Alliance County was relatively free from the threats of the Empire Gang, outlaws who rustled cattle and stirred up trouble. It seemed like so long ago, but had really only been a few weeks.
CP and Luke had just left the breakfast table for the pasture, and Chewie was working behind the barn. Han was left by himself, staring at the remaining pancake on his plate.
"Are you feeling alright?" Leia asked.
"Yeah, 'course. Why?"
"You normally eat three or four pancakes for breakfast, and now you're having trouble even starting your second," Leia observed. She'd only been cooking for this man for a few weeks since she'd arrived to be his bride, but one thing had become abundantly clear right from the start: Han liked to eat.
"Naw, it's fine, Leia," he promised.
"No, it's not. What's wrong with it? Is it not cooked right?" she asked, picking up his plate and giving the pancake a nudge with the spatula.
"No, Leia, I said it's fine," Han insisted.
"What's changed in the last week, Han? I thought you liked my pancakes!"
"Well, maybe I'd compliment you more if you cooked somethin' else for a change!"
"If you wanted something different, why didn't you just ask? It's not like you've had a hard time telling me what you don't like about a dozen other things," she shot back.
"Fine. You know what I want? Roast and potatoes. Stew with fresh bread. Cornbread muffins. There's plenty of vegetables out in the garden that you could be cookin' up for us, too. I don't know what they told you back East, but we don't just eat flapjacks and pork'n'beans out here, Princess," Han retorted.
Leia bit down her anger. She, too, was getting rather sick of eating—much less cooking—the same few food items over and over again. The trouble was, she didn't know how to make much else. The things she did know how to cook, she couldn't get ingredients for out here. The only thing she had was a cookbook plundered from the reject pile at the library where she'd worked in New York City.
"All you had to do was ask," she restated, hoping that would be the end of the argument and he'd leave. If luck was with her, he'd go out to the pasture and Leia could sneak to the Rieekan's—she knew that Sarah would be more than willing to help Leia with her dilemma.
"Okay, then. You know what I really want? There's a huge patch a' wild blueberries out by the pasture; why don't you make us up a pie, or hell, even just put 'em in the damn pancakes now and then?"
There are other things one could make with blueberries? Leia felt a flash of frustration and humiliation at her ignorance. This was not a good argument to start, Leia, she scolded herself mentally. She thought quickly for her next smart retort, clapping onto the first thing that entered her head and blurting it out.
"Maybe I'd make you a pie if I had somewhere to let it cool in this forsaken place," she snapped. That's the best thing you could come up with? Well, no turning back now...
"You got the whole prairie, Princess, what more do you want?" he asked, following her the two steps to the dish pan. This little choreographed routine had become frightfully common in the past few weeks since the rustling-they'd start out with a perfectly civil conversation that somehow turned red-hot after a few careless remarks, and then they were standing toe-to-toe over her cooling dishwater arguing about something neither really had a strong opinion about in the first place.
"Of course. Right. I'm just going to put a fresh blueberry pie out on the ground where all the infernal bugs that crawl around here can get into it, or on the fence post for your fool horse to knock over. I suppose I could put it on the windowsill—oh, wait; we don't have one," Leia dug.
"Fine. You want a window?" Han asked, standing up and walking over to the wall. "You got one. How about here? That fit your royal tastes?" He dragged the blade of his pocket knife across the wall, leaving a little square indentation. Leia looked at him like he was crazy.
"Looks fine to me," she shrugged, wondering how an indentation in the wall was supposed to satisfy her. Han nodded and marched out of the cabin. Leia shook her head and continued with the dishes. She didn't look up when he marched back in a few minutes later, but jumped considerably when something hit the wall. Turning quickly, Leia jumped again as Han drove the blade of his small hand hatchet into the center of the square.
"Something wrong?" he asked, looking over his shoulder.
"Nothing," Leia responded blithely.
Han nodded and went back to hacking at the wall. She watched for a moment, shocked that he'd chip away at his precious cabin with an axe so...haphazardly.
When the hole was almost as big as the line he'd made with his knife, he turned to her and gave her a look that said, just you wait and see. Han walked out, leaving half the room strewn with wood chips and sawdust.
"I swear, Han Solo, if I didn't need you just to stay alive…" Leia murmured, leaving the thought unfinished, scraping at a bit of overcooked pancake dough on the skillet.
She could hear Han clattering around in the barn, and the bite of a saw added to the noise a few minutes later. Leia finished the breakfast dishes and was tossing out the water when he breezed passed her into the cabin with a hammer, a hand plane, and a few smooth boards.
The floor of the cabin was soon covered with even more sawdust as Han worked carefully at his craft. Leia couldn't help but watch as the muscles in his arms and back flexed under his thin cotton workshirt. After all, he was her husband. That meant she was allowed to stare at him if she so desired, right?
His hands were mesmerizing, too, as he pressed the hand plane over the hole in the wall. The splintered, uneven surface gave way in little curls of wood to a smooth, flat plane. He did an awful lot with those strong, rough hands—she'd seen him twist and twirl a rope into a strong lariat and throw it around a renegade cow, seen him chopping wood and stacking the logs, seen him digging with dirt buried in the creases of his knuckles and under his nails. Still, she knew they could be gentle, too; she'd seen evidence of that in the way he gently brushed Millennium, the way he held the reins to keep just enough control but not break the stallion's spirit, even in the way he'd taken care of her black eye after the rustling, or the bee sting she'd gotten in the garden.
"Do you need somethin'?"
Han's voice startled her out of her reverie. "What? No, of course not," Leia snapped, grabbing up her broom and sweeping at the ashes in front of the stove. "I'm just waiting for you to be out of the way so that I can get that sawdust off of my floor."
She watched as Han rolled his eyes, and then picked up a large, flat board and a hammer. He tapped the board into the frame, giving the window a wide sill.
"Big enough for you, Princess?" he asked, turning and giving her that smirk that she hated.
"Plenty, cowboy," Leia shot back.
"Good. I won't keep you from your sweepin', then," he said, gathering his tools and heading out of the cabin.
Well, I guess this means I need to make a pie, Leia thought to herself, rummaging through her trunk to find the recipe book she kept hidden. The recipe seemed easy enough: just flour, salt, lard, and butter for the pie paste, and berries and sugar for the filling. She supposed it wouldn't be a terrible thing to undertake. She found a small pail, took her bonnet down from its hook, and headed outside.
The blueberry bushes were grown up along the fence near the gate of the West Pasture. The bushes were laden with berries, and Leia sampled a few while she filled her pail. Han wasn't wrong—they would be good in just about anything. It didn't take long for her to gather the required amount and then some.
After returning to the cabin with her pail, she put them in a pan of water to soak for a while while she rolled out the paste. She mixed up the ingredients as prescribed, and couldn't help but give a small giggle of victory as it mashed together into a golden ball of dough. Breaking it in two, Leia rolled each ball out, laying one into the bottom of her pan smeared with lard. The other, she managed to cut and braid into a lovely little lattice top.
Leia jumped when the mantle clock rang 11 o'clock. The men would be in for dinner before too long. She quickly made some sandwiches, Han's comment about her preparing the same things all the time settling into the front of her mind.
Let's see you try to cook something new out of the same few ingredients, hotshot, she grumbled, setting the plate out of the way to wait for the men. Next, Leia prepared the blueberries just as the book said, stirring them on the stove with some sugar.
She heard horses ride in from the direction of the South Pasture—they'd be in for dinner soon. Leia looked nervously into the soupy mixture in the pot. Stay calm, Leia, she told herself. There are plenty of situations that call for panic, but this is not one.
"Hey, Leia," Luke greeted easily as he walked into the cabin.
"Hi," she responded, trying to keep the terseness out of her voice.
"Chewie and Han are finishing up in the shed, so you can hold dinner for at least another half hour," he told her.
"Han's not in from the shed yet?" she asked.
"Nope. There's a buggy comin' up the drive. I'll go see who it is," Luke said cheerfully.
"Company and this mess?" Leia lamented aloud, throwing the spoon into the pot.
A buggy rattled into the yard and Leia glanced out to see who had come calling—the Rieekans. Leia breathed a sigh of relief. She waved politely to the Sheriff when he saw her in the doorway, and Sarah greeted Luke and CP before coming to the cabin.
"I am so glad you're here, Sarah," Leia said, gesturing toward the pot on the stove. "I tried making a pie out of this book, and it's just not coming together."
"Oh, well that's no worry at'all," Sarah promised, taking a small scoop out of the sack of flour. "We'll add a touch of honey, too. Gives everything a real nice flavor and will thicken this right up." Within moments, they were scraping the aromatic mixture into the prepared paste and laying the top lattice over.
"I see you're gettin' a new window," Sarah commented as Leia slipped the pan into the oven.
"Indeed. That was our trade—a window for a fresh pie. You see how nice that's turning out," Leia said, motioning to the window, "I figured the pie better come out just as nice."
Sarah smiled. "Just keep an eye on it and pull it out when the crust is nice and golden. You'll have a house full of windows in no time," she winked. "I hear my husband callin'—we just stopped over so he could borrow a tool. Good luck with your pie, and see you in church," she called. Leia waved out the door and quickly returned to the stove to check the pie.
Patience. We just put it in a minute ago, she chided herself. The next several minutes were spent pacing the floor in front of the stove, her stomach rumbling as the whole cabin filled with the fruity smell.
She finally risked a peek, and found that it was just the right color. The flat sill fit the pan just right. Steam rose from the pie and blew out into the barnyard as two more sets of hoofbeats came from the direction of the South Pasture.
Han came in a moment later, nose in the air.
"Do I smell pie?" he asked, giving her a smug smile. Leia returned the grin before cutting him a large slice. "See how good things can be when we talk it out, Princess?" Han asked, accepting the fork she offered and taking a bite.
"Good?" she asked.
"Mmm. Delicious. Tastes just like Sarah Rieekan's," he complimented.
"Really?" Leia asked blithely. "What a coincidence."
AN:Did you like it? Send me a review!
Good news! These chapters are longer than the chapters in the first story, although there are only nine. I think I'm going to post one chapter every other day, which will take us through the 17th of September. New chapter coming Sunday!