Mail-Order Christmas Brides: Her Christmas Family / Christmas Stars for Dry Creek

“Then Patches can be part yours, too.” Gertie leaned closer to the woman, absolute adoration written on her dear face.

His chest cinched tight. What was he going to do about that? Tension licked through him, more regret than anger. Why couldn’t that woman be what he’d bargained for? His little girl was seriously smitten with the woman. How did he protect her from more heartache? He shook his head, not liking the situation. Not one bit. Best to do what had to be done now and get it over with. He reined Patches toward the nearest hitching post.

“Oh, this is a lovely town. Just like something out of a storybook.” The woman clasped her hands, gasping with a sweet little sound that seemed genuine, not fake. He drew the gelding to a stop, his gaze arrowing to her instead of his driving. The brisk air had painted her cheeks a rosy pink, the color accentuating the fine lines of her high cheekbones and the heart shape of her dainty chin.

“The shops are decorated for Christmas. Look at the candles. This is exactly the sort of town I’ve always wanted to live in. It’s homey and sweet and safe feeling.” Sincerity rang in her words as she gazed up and down the street. “It looks as if fairy tales can happen here.”

“I go to school right over there.” Gertie pointed across the street, where the tailor shop hid the schoolhouse two blocks away. “I got a perfect mark in spelling today. I studied real well.”

“I’m so proud of you.” The woman turned her attention to his child. He didn’t want to believe the tenderness he saw on her face or heard in her words as she pulled off her gloves. “I knew from your first letter you were a very smart girl.”

“You did?” Gertie perked up like a dying plant finally set in the sun. “I worked really hard on that letter.”

“I could tell.” She slipped one glove onto Gertie’s hand. “You spelled every word perfectly. It was a very good letter.”

Gertie beamed. Life came into her, something he hadn’t seen since Lolly’s death. His dislike of the woman fizzled as she snuggled the second glove into place and patted the girl’s covered hands. “There. That ought to keep you toasty warm.”

“They are so soft.” Gertie held out her hands and inspected the gloves.

“I’ll knit you a pair, how’s that?”

Already the woman made promises to his daughter, ones she couldn’t possibly keep, and that would be his fault. But someone had to put a stop to this before more damage could be done. He hopped out of the wagon. “I’ll get your trunk, Miss Sawyer. Plans have changed.”

“Changed?” Confused, she blinked those long curly lashes of hers. The wind played with fine gold strands of hair fallen down from the confines of her hat. “This is a hotel. I don’t understand. You were going to take me to your house.”

“True, but I’ve had second thoughts and I’m sorry about it.” He braced himself for the emotional battle, often a woman’s way of controlling a man. He focused on the snow compacted beneath his boots and the rhythm of his cane tapping on it. “You won’t be staying with us. I’ll get you a return ticket in the morning.”

“What? You’re sending me back?” The words rang hollow, vibrating like a plucked string, full of pain. “I don’t understand. We had an agreement.”

“We did. Believe me, I wish I could keep it.” He leaned his cane against his hip to wrestle with the tailgate. It killed him to admit it. “I’m sorry you came all this way, but you aren’t going to fit in here. You don’t suit. Surely you can feel it, too?”

“Papa! What do you mean? No. Don’t send her away.” Gertie’s face crumpled. Life drained from her like sun from the sky. Misery said what she could not. She turned around, climbing onto her knees, gripping the seat back with Miss Sawyer’s gloves still on her hands. Her blue gaze lassoed him, letting him feel her anguish.

He blinked hard against the stab of pain in his chest. He didn’t want his girl hurt. That’s why he was doing this. It was the right thing. That didn’t give him comfort as he unwound the chain, the rattle of metal echoing straight through him as if nothing, not even his soul, remained.

“It’s the best thing to do, Gertie.” He tried to comfort her with his voice. “You’ll never know how sorry I am.”

“Oh, Papa.” The springs creaked as she sat down proper and buried her face in her hands.

He broke right along with her. He had no idea how to fix the situation and scowled at the woman responsible. Miss Sawyer in her tailored clothes tapped rapidly in his direction. Already folks on the boardwalk were passing by, throwing curious glances their way. One word from any of them about his past, and she would be gone, anyway. She had options. He did not. He dropped the chain on the wagon box and reached for the trunk. A yellow ruffle flounced into view.

“How don’t I suit?” Not a demand, but a plea. “You don’t know me. You’ve hardly said a few dozen words to me.”

“I just know. Isn’t it obvious to you?” He couldn’t be what she’d been wishing for. He dragged the trunk closer. He meant to be kind. He wished he could be. “Look, I’m not the right sort of husband for you. I’m going to do the best thing for both of us. It’s better you go now than later. Better for her.”

“For Gertie?” Confusion knelled in her words, drawing him closer, making him look. In the thinning afternoon light, the sun continued to find her, to glow in the golden wisps of her hair, to make luminous her ivory complexion. “I wouldn’t hurt her for the world. I don’t understand this.”

“I’m being honest and doing what’s right, Miss Sawyer—”

“Felicity,” she insisted, moving in to lay her hand on his. The shock of her touch, warm and innocent on his cold skin, made his mind empty, his knees buckle and his anger fade.

The anger was just a defense. He really didn’t dislike her. That was the worst part. Of all the things she could have said, he wasn’t prepared for her concern toward his daughter.

“Give me a chance, that’s all I’m asking.” Her eyes were darker than blueberries. He could see the shadows in them, the wounds of spirit that made the muscle in his chest clamp harder. As if she sensed his weakness, she pleaded on, “At least wait until you know me before you send me away.”

“What about Gertie? She wants you to stay, but you could have anyone. You are beautiful—” Heat stained his face. Bashful from fear of revealing too much, he stared hard at the square of snow visible between his boots.

“You think I’m beautiful?” She breathed the words like wonder, but surely he was only imagining that. Women like Miss Sawyer probably heard that all the time. Her hand remained on his, never moving.

What did he say? Pride held him up as he stared at the hand on his, small and delicate. The slightly rough calluses on the pads of her fingers surprised him. Up close he could see the loneliness shining in her eyes and the set of her delicate jaw, strong, as if used to facing hardship.

Now that he took the time to see it, she wore the air of a woman who’d been on her own too long and struggled to make ends meet. He finally noticed the wear on her coat, although lovingly cared for, and not the new garment he’d mistaken it to be.

“Miss, you don’t look desperate enough to settle for the likes of me.” He might as well admit the truth.

The truth had a startling effect on her. He watched amazed as her guard went down, as the pools that were her eyes deepened to show more of her. He looked into that well of sadness and loss, and felt the muscles where his heart used to be whip tight. He’d been so wrapped up in his own challenges, fighting to right what was wrong in his life to make things better for his daughter that he’d forgotten adversity could fall like rain, striking many people.

“You were not what I envisioned, Tate. I can’t deny it.” The pearls of her teeth dug into her bottom lip as she hesitated, perhaps debating the right words. “I imagined you any number of ways. Tall or short. Bony or beefy. Disagreeable or pleasant. But any way I pictured you, I prayed that what I felt when I read your advertisement was true. That you were a man who loved his daughter above all else, a man of heart and gentleness.”

Her words struck like bullets in the empty place between his ribs. He cast a glance at Gertie, still bent forward on the seat, her back to him, her thin shoulders shaking with silent sobs. He wished he could turn back time, reassemble the man he used to be so he could give her the kindness she deserved.

But not even God could change the past, so he straightened his spine. He may be many things, but a coward wasn’t one of them. “I am not gentle. I have no heart. And likely when you hear what folks say about me, you will be off to seek out the next man on your list who is looking for a wife.”

“No. There are no others on my list. I wanted Gertie from the start. From the moment I read your words in the paper I wanted to be her mother.” She changed before his eyes, drawing herself up like a woman weary of fighting battles and resigned to fight one more. Hurt etched in her fine-boned features as she set her chin another notch higher. “Tell me this one thing, it’s all that I care about. Have you ever harmed a woman? Will you harm me?”

“Never. But why on earth would you want me?” Glimmers of the past flashed into his mind, memories he would not allow to take hold. He stared at the hotel’s sign, debating what to do. Black letters on brass glinted in the waning sun, perhaps a sign he should not relent. He should stick to his decision and send her away. He hated how hard Gertie was crying. What should he do? “The way I see it, you’ve got to be hiding something. What is it, Miss Sawyer? If you are not desperate or in sad straits, then there is some other reason you’re here.”

“I never said I wasn’t in desperate straits.” Her hand on his remained, a physical link between them, and suddenly it became more. Her touch sank down as if trying to snare his emotions, somehow a bond between them.

“I lost my job as a seamstress. The town I grew up in began to die when the railroad bypassed it. First, a few businesses closed and left. Then the mill shut down. Jobs dried up. I didn’t want to leave, hoping my sisters whom I was separated from would return. How else could we find each other again? So I stayed longer than I should have, living on hope and my savings until even that was gone.” The fading light framed her, as if it hated to let go of such honesty.

He knew how the light felt, as he reluctantly slipped his hand from beneath hers, breaking the connection between them and any bond she tried to create. A tie that could never be. He hardened himself to it and swallowed hard.

Don’t let her story soften you, he told himself, but less bitterness soured him as he checked on his daughter. Still silently crying, shaking with sobs of loss. How could he leave her sitting there like that? Worse, how could he trust her with a woman who didn’t need her enough?

“I have nowhere to go, no prospects, no other advertisements I’ve answered. I love your daughter, Tate. I haven’t had a family since I was seven years old. I can understand what Gertie has been through. I can love her better than any other woman. Just give me the chance.” She glanced at the hotel sign, the tears in her eyes pooling, threatening to fall. She did not use tears to sway him, only her love that lit her like candlelight on a dark night, that warmed her like fire crackling in a home’s hearth. When her gaze found his daughter, longing shone within her. He could see a mother’s love as she ached for the crying girl.

“I’m not sure I can leave her. Please, don’t make me.” She whispered the words but they seemed to fill up the street, silencing the noise and chasing away the setting sun. Rosy light painted her, a coincidence, he told himself, not the hand of God pointing the way.

“I’ve had one wife run off on me. I can’t have another.” He gave the trunk a push, shoving it deeper into the wagon box. “Gertie can’t take one more loss.”

“Neither can I.” The tears standing in her eyes shimmered like pieces of a long-ago broken spirit.

He’d been quick to judge Miss Sawyer based on her looks, perhaps so quick because he’d feared she would look at him and do the same. Now that he gazed deeper, he saw they were more alike than different. He was sorry for that. He knew what it was to wait for someone to return, refusing to give up hope. He knew what it was like for that hope to die and your soul right along with it.

The chains rattled as he secured the tailgate. He didn’t want to face her reaction. Best not to see the disappointment on the woman as she realized in gaining Gertie she would be getting him. “This means you will need to marry me.”

“I shall try to endure it.” A hint of humor played in her words, her silent message saying she didn’t mind too much, and it made the place between his ribs sting unbearably.

He refused to like her. Common sense whispered to him that he was a fool but he helped her step onto the running board, anyway. Gertie would have a ma. A ma he believed would stay.

He hoped he was right as he circled around to his seat and took the reins.

Chapter Three

What am I getting into? She braced herself on the seat as the runners struck another rut. Tate sat as stoic as a mountain, reins in his capable hands, attention on the late-afternoon traffic. She wanted to dislike him except for his words that stuck in her head. I’ve had one wife run off on me.

He’d been abandoned? And Gertie, too? She studied the child’s small hand tucked into her own, lost in the too-large glove. Felicity sighed. That explained why he’d been unsure about her. He’d been trying to protect his child. Her child, now. She would not fault him for that. She’d never seen anyone with so much pain in him.

Festive candles flickered in shop windows, decorated for Christmas. This day that should have been filled with promise; she only felt a strange ache settling deep into her chest, refusing to budge. Perhaps her optimism had been a tad high for a mail-order bride. She thought of Eleanor McBride, the young woman she’d befriended on the train. When they’d discovered they were both journeying to marry men they’d never met, they had struck up an instant bond. Eleanor had disembarked at Dry Creek while she’d gone on to Angel Falls, and during that last leg of her journey she had time to imagine an awful lot. But she hadn’t been prepared for the real Tate Winters. Had Eleanor’s experience been similar? Eleanor’s groom had not met her at the train.

Her teeth clacked together as the runners hit an extremely bumpy rut. He needs to get to know me better, she decided. Maybe once he saw who she was and how much this family meant to her, things would be different. Stubborn hope struggled for life as she dared to study him out of the corners of her eyes. Severe, he looked like a sculpture carved out of pure marble. How would a smile change his face? She pictured his unforgiving lines softening with humor and his midnight-blue eyes dancing with laughter.

Her stomach fluttered and not from nerves. She held on to the edge of the seat as the horse drew them over a small berm and into a side street, where twilight turned shadows into darkness. Tate became a silhouette, an impressive outline of masculinity and might, and the flutter moved upward toward her heart. He would be quite handsome, she guessed, if hopelessness didn’t rest so heavily on his iron shoulders.

“That’s the feed store where Pa works.” Gertie pointed out as the runners jounced onto the next street. The lighted windows of storefronts reflected warmly on the long stretch of ice. “It’s Uncle Devin’s store. It used to be Grandpop’s store, but he died.”

Felicity caught a glimpse of a barrel behind the shop’s window before Patches drew them onto a residential street. She glanced around. Not exactly a prosperous place. One tiny shanty slumped in the darkness. Another one peered at them from behind a grove of scrawny trees.

“And that’s where we live. Right there. Do you see it?”

“It’s too dark.” She leaned forward, straining through the thickening duskiness. Emotion choked her and stung in her eyes, making it hard to see the dwelling. A lamp burned on the other side of a curtain, casting just enough light to see a crooked porch and lopsided eaves, yellow clapboard and a sturdy front door.

“Now do you see it?”

“I do.” No more boardinghouse meals and temporary rooms or a bed that had never been her own. This was her home. Her first real home in seventeen years.

Thank you, Lord. She let the gratitude move through her. Hebrews 11:1 promised hope and a good future, and she’d never felt the words touch her more. Patches nosed down the narrow driveway, drawing them up to the small yellow house, shabby with poverty and neglect.

“It isn’t much.” Tate’s baritone held no note of emotion. He didn’t move, a brawny form, radiating a challenge. As if he expected her to find fault or prove him right by deciding to cut her losses and leave now.

Not a chance. He didn’t know her well, but he would. When she made up her mind, nothing could sway her. An icy plop fell onto her cheek, accompanied by a hundred taps onto the frozen ground. Snow. Heaven’s reassurance. Like grace, snow make things fresh and new.

“This house is just right.” She lifted her chin, determined to let Tate see she wasn’t going anywhere. “It’s the nicest place I’ve lived in for a long while.”

A deep “hmm” resonated from his side of the wagon, as if her answer surprised him. His movements rustled, echoing faintly in the silent stretch of dark as the last dregs of twilight vanished from the sky. Inky blackness descended in full, making Tate a part of the night as his steely hand gripped her elbow, helping her to keep her balance as she sank ankle-deep in snow.

“Careful there.” The smoky pitch of his words enveloped her briefly. Unaware of his effect on her he pulled away, leaving her to trudge along a shoveled path toward the porch steps.

“C’mon, Felicity. Follow me.” Gertie shivered with anticipation as she charged up the steps. The front door flew open in a wash of lamplight.

“I thought I heard you pull in.” A woman about twenty-three or twenty-four, Felicity’s same age, came into sight in a carefully patched dress. Her voice had a smiling quality, the sound of a friend. “Goodness, Gertie, don’t drag Felicity around like that. Felicity, I’m Ingrid, Tate’s sister.”

“Sister?” She hadn’t known. Gertie hadn’t written of an aunt. She hurried up the steps. “I’m delighted to meet you, Ingrid.”

“Call me Ing.” Ingrid hauled her through the doorway and into a welcoming hug. “It is wonderful you are finally here. Gertie shared your every letter with me. I’ve been on pins and needles all day long waiting for you. I think we will be great friends.”

“I do, too.” Happiness lumped in her throat, making it hard to speak. “I didn’t know I was getting a new sister.”

“Tate is in real trouble now, since we can conspire against him.” Good-humored brown eyes glanced out the open doorway, where a frigid wind gusted and Tate’s shadow knelt to lower the trunk onto the tiny porch.

Why did her heart jump at his shadow? Why did she strain to hear the departing crunch of his boots down the pathway? A moment later, horse hooves clinked a slow rhythm, growing faint.

“I’m sure he heard me and didn’t like what I said.” Laughing, Ingrid closed the door against the wintry night. “Let me hang your coat while you get warm by the fire.”

“Shouldn’t I fetch my trunk?”

“Tate will bring it in when he’s done stabling the horse.” Ingrid, petite and slender, apple-cheeked and energetic, helped Felicity out of her wraps. “You must be frozen through. I’ve heard some of those railroad cars can be quite drafty. Was it exciting riding a train all that way?”

“Very. The most exciting thing I’ve ever done.” She thought of Eleanor as she surrendered her coat. She glanced around and noted the secondhand sofa with fraying cushions, a scarred wooden chair and a battered table tucked midway between the sitting area and the kitchen. She set her reticule on a rickety end table. “Have you ever ridden the train?”

“Sadly, yes. Many times.” Sorrow stole Ingrid’s smile as she hung the coats on a wall peg. Even Gertie bowed her head, as if saying anything more would dredge up a sadness neither of them could speak of.

What had happened to this family? Questions burned on her tongue, but she stayed silent, not wanting to sadden them more. The scent of a baking roast rose richly from the range. In the shadows, the kitchen took up the other outside wall of the main room with a pair of tall cupboards and slanting shelves. Wilting muslin curtains hung on the windows, the only adornment in the plain, brown room. This place needed a woman’s touch. Good thing she’d spent time sewing, embroidering and crocheting preparing for this day.

“What do you think of Tate?” Ingrid whirled away to light a lamp centered on the round oak table.

“He’s—” Words failed her. She thought of his frown. She thought of his cold manner. Then she remembered the love he had for his daughter. “I think he will make a fine husband.”

“He will. He is absolutely a good man.” Ingrid lifted the lamp’s glass chimney and brought a flickering match to the exposed wick. “I’m glad you see that in him.”

Gertie sidled close and pulled off the overly large gloves one by one to watch her aunt light the lamp. The glass chimney clinked back into place like a bell ending the sadness. Light danced, driving the shadows from the room and Felicity was able to see more of her new home. Blue ironware plates sat on shelves, pots and pans rested on lower ones. The windows were large and bound to let in plenty of cheerful sunshine during the day. She could make this place feel cozy in no time.

Bless this house with Your love, Lord. She smiled reassuringly into Gertie’s anxious blue eyes. Help me to make it into a home. That’s what Gertie needs.

She needed it, too.

And Tate? She felt his approach long before the rhythm of his boots reached her. Remembering his desolate shadows, she wondered what she could do for him, this man who had given her this dream of a real home.

“Here are your gloves, Felicity.”

“Thank you, Gertie. Do you hear that?”

“It’s Pa!” Adoration illuminated her, making her as bright as a star in the heavenly sky. Her shoes tapped a beat to the door, which she flung open. “Pa’s got your trunk!”

“So I see.” She couldn’t explain why her gaze searched the shadows for a glimpse of his face. She longed for the sight of him. The side of her trunk hid him as he lumbered into the reach of lamplight. Without a word he bypassed her and disappeared behind a door in the far wall.

That’s it? Not so much as a hello, or where do you want your trunk? She folded her gloves in half, smoothing them absently. She felt Ingrid’s curiosity, and then sympathy as she slipped the gloves next to her reticule. His behavior didn’t hurt her, at least that’s what she tried to believe. In reality it did, down deep.

A thump echoed through the lifeless rooms as her trunk hit the floor.

“Don’t take it personally. Tate doesn’t realize how cold he can seem.” Ingrid set a steaming teacup on the edge of the table. “Sometimes a heart is broken too many times and there is no way to put it back together again.”

Felicity considered those hushed words and her hopes sank. She’d imagined so much with each letter she received from Gertie. A wonderfully loving father, a happy home, a man lonely and in need of a caring wife. She could see now those were Gertie’s hopes, not Tate’s. It wasn’t reality.

His boots struck like hammer blows on the wood floor, his cane tapping a counter rhythm. He shouldered into sight, shrinking the room. He looked immense with his broad shoulders and muscled girth. The power of his disinterest in her struck like a hard gust of wind, shaking her to the bones.

“I gave you my room. I moved all my things across the street, to the room above the store.” An icicle would be warmer than his tone and a glacier friendlier. “You will live here with Gertie until we’re…married…and then I’ll move into the lean-to.”