A Christmas Promise

by Wendy Lindstrom

  At age fifty-five Dawson still hadn’t married or sired children and was considered eccentric by some of the townsfolk. Ezra had given their father George Crane granddaughters, but it was Elias who had provided the one and only grandson—Micah George Crane—to carry on the Crane name. That son had nearly died—may have died—today.

  Adam’s gut knotted as he and Leo followed the groomed driveway lit by ornate gas lanterns mounted on decorative wrought iron posts. A column of tall maple trees formed a canopy above their heads and shaded a board and batten carriage house to the right of the drive. The sprawling mansion, accented by large round-top windows and a deep veranda supported by tall columns, rose up before them like a majestic ship approaching the harbor.

  Together Leo and Adam stepped into Crane’s plush foyer of mahogany paneled walls and thick velvet draperies. They were immediately greeted by Elias Crane himself. The stately sandy-haired man steered them directly to his library of floor-to-ceiling book shelves and heavy leather furniture positioned around a massive stone fireplace. As Elias reached for a crystal decanter, Adam couldn’t help wondering if the man would be offering a beverage in celebration... or bereavement.

  Wondering, worrying, Adam’s gut churned. Exhausted from a long day of work and his struggle beneath the frigid Atlantic waters, his need for resolution killed his sense of etiquette. He couldn’t wait for a drink. He couldn’t wait another painful second. “Your son, sir... is he... did he survive?”

  Tanned and lightly freckled from his life of sailing and building ships, Elias arched an eyebrow, creasing his forehead. “Thanks to you, Adam, my son is in his bed resting and recovering. He needed a few sutures to close the gash beneath his chin, but a hot bath and a dose of laudanum from Doc Samuel have eased his complaints.”

  Adam’s relief was so great, everything after that moment took on a dreamlike feel, as if he were still submersed in the cold Atlantic water, floating and wrapped in the sound of the ocean.

  They celebrated with Crane’s best whiskey served in Waterford crystal glasses. Mrs. Crane, elegantly dressed in rose satin, appeared shaky and tearful as she entered the library to thank Adam and Leo for saving their son. Together the Cranes bestowed gifts of gratitude. To Leo, Elias Crane awarded the new title of Quality and Safety Foreman along with a significant increase in Leo’s wage. He scheduled a meeting with Leo to discuss improving safety for all workers at Crane and Grayson.

  To Adam, Elias Crane said, “I know you’re a partner with your dad and uncles at their mill in Fredonia, and I wouldn’t want to swindle them out of an industrious partner, but I need to make it clear that you could have a bright future here, Adam. We need men of your caliber to run our operations. You could easily step into a management position on the mill side of our business. With another year or two of apprenticing on the shipping side, you could attain a similar position in that part of our business. I suspect you’ll want to return to Fredonia, but should you decide to stay on at Crane Landing you and your bride could begin your married life in the house up the road. Cecily’s Cottage is yours, Adam. It’s the only way I know how to thank you for saving my son.”

  Elias Crane’s words and generosity overwhelmed Adam. He’d simply pulled the man’s son out of the bay. “Your gratitude is more than enough,” Adam said, grossly uncomfortable. In Adam’s mind, Elias Crane was of Grayson caliber—a man of deep integrity and high moral fiber. To be courted by such a man was an immense honor that Adam didn’t take lightly. But his heart was in Fredonia with Rebecca and his Grayson family. “I appreciate your consideration, but I must decline on all fronts. Please, consider Micah’s retrieval nothing more than the decent act it was.”

  “I’m afraid we can’t do that,” Elias said. “Without your help our son would be dead.”

  “That’s right,” Mrs. Crane said, her voice wobbling with emotion. “You have no idea what you gave us today, but we know.” She handed him an intricately carved wooden box. “We thought you would choose to return to Fredonia and therefore have no need of a house here, but we wanted to offer you that choice. Since you won’t be staying, we want you to have this in lieu of the house. She pushed the box into Adam’s hands. “This was made for a princess who possessed amazing courage,” she said. “To thank you for risking your life to save our son’s life, we feel it fitting to recognize your courage with this symbolic gift. It’s one of our family heirlooms and we are honored to pass it on to you.”

  Dumbfounded, Adam opened the box and stared at the jewel-bedecked mirror inside. Elias Crane explained what Adam held in his shaking hands. It was a relic of great worth and rich history. The frame was crafted from rare tiger striped wood that came from an ancient forest in the Cayman Islands. Embedded into the wood were gems of immense value. Pure molten silver had been poured into a ribbon shaped channel around the mirror, connecting the stones to amplify their power, Elias told him. On the back of the mirror, embossed in pure silver and set in the wooden back, was a royal crest with a blue sapphire set in the crest.

  “That is the royal crest of Princess Cecily who once owned the mirror—the princess who was forced to leave her homeland and come to America with Captain Gabriel Crane,” Elias said.

  The sparkling six-rayed star sapphire winked in the lantern light as if beckoning Adam to listen to its story. Uncomfortable with whatever it was he’d felt emanating from the sapphire, Adam placed it back in the box. The small oval mirror reflected his entranced gaze back at him. Gently but firmly, he pressed the ornate box into Mrs. Crane’s delicate hands. “I’m deeply honored by your generosity, but I cannot accept payment for a simple act of decency that any man could have performed.”

  The Crane’s exchanged a knowing look as if they had expected Adam’s refusal, but Leo looked on with interest.

  “Well, it wasn’t just any man, Adam.” Elias nudged the box back into Adam’s hand. “You are the man who saved my son. You are the man who nearly sacrificed your own future to give my son a future. Thanks to you my boy will celebrate his eighteenth birthday this fall. You’ll understand this when you have your own children, Adam. Nothing in life—not one thing—means more to a parent than his child. If you can’t accept this heirloom as a symbol of our gratitude and as a testament to your courage, then please accept it as a wedding gift for you and your future bride.”

  The gift was too much and unnecessary and almost offensive to Adam’s sense of integrity. To be rewarded for an act of common decency seemed... wrong. But he saw their desperate need to express their gratitude, to try in some way to thank him for giving them back the only thing that mattered to them—their son.

  With a quiet sigh of acceptance, Adam gave a small nod. “Rebecca and I will treasure this and share the history of the heirloom with our children.”

  Mrs. Crane gave him a relieved smile. “Perhaps you could bring your bride to Crane Landing so we can tell you both the story of the mirror—and of Princess Cecily and Gabriel Crane. It is a beautiful story we would love to share with you two.”

  “Perhaps we’ll visit after our wedding,” Adam said, hoping they would. He wanted to bring Rebecca to Crane Landing to see the ocean and the majestic ships that sailed from its shores. But for today, the only thing he wanted was to get home and pull her into his lonely aching arms.

  Chapter Two

  Barefoot, Rebecca Grayson pirouetted across the wood floor of her bedroom, dreaming of dancing in Adam’s arms on their wedding day little more than a month away.

  After months and years of sporadic, too-short visits home, Adam would finally be back to stay—to marry her and begin living the life they had dreamt about for so long.

  She folded his letter—the last one he’d sent to her—and placed it inside a wooden chest filled with his correspondence and her journals. Adam had created the cedar chest for her six years earlier, before he’d left for university. Neither of them could have anticipated that the trunk would contain six years’ worth of letters filled with heartache and longing before he would retu
rn home and make her his wife.

  But he was truly coming home, and she would be meeting him at their willow tree tomorrow evening. She ached to feel his strong arms around her, to press her face to his neck and inhale the pine and cedar scent of him, to experience the wonderful feel of his lips upon hers.

  Sighing, she swept a brush through her long, thick hair, daydreaming about their love. With efficient skill, she twisted the ebony waves into a chignon and pinned it in place. Above it, she added a tortoise shell hair comb that Adam had given to her last year on her twenty-third birthday. Tomorrow, when Adam returned, she would leave her hair down, the way he liked it best.

  Their local veterinarian, Calvin Uldridge—with whom she’d been apprenticing the last several years—would be here soon. Although he’d been opposed to teaching a woman his trade, he acquiesced when Rebecca demonstrated her special skill with horses—a skill she’d acquired from her mother, Evelyn Tucker Grayson. Her mother had grown up working in her father’s livery and had eventually inherited it.

  Rebecca drew on her worn riding habit and then floated downstairs on a cloud of happiness. One more day and she and Adam would finally... finally be together.

  Her father, along with Will, the eldest of her brothers, had already left for the sawmill. Her mother, dressed in a simple green frock and brown and beige checkered apron, was putting eggs, biscuits, and fresh milk on the table for Hannah, Tyler, and Sarah, Rebecca’s younger siblings, who would be off to school shortly. Little Emma was still sleeping, but she would be up before long, dogging Rebecca’s and her mother’s heels and asking a hundred questions as they worked in the livery.

  In that moment, Rebecca suddenly glimpsed her life years from now. She would have her own family with Adam. She would cook them breakfast in her own kitchen and would eventually send her babies off to school and university or marriage.

  “Good morning,” her mother said, her eyes twinkling at Rebecca as she placed the glasses on the table “Someone is all smiles this morning.”

  Rebecca swept her mother into her arms for a hug and a twirl around the kitchen. “Adam’s coming home tomorrow, Mama!”

  Her mother’s laughter filled the room, and they ended their impromptu dance with an exuberant hug. “I’m happy for you, sweetheart. You’ve been waiting a long time.”

  Dark-haired, fair-skinned with eyes as green as emeralds, her mother was a beautiful woman who possessed a youthful energy that Rebecca hoped she never lost.

  “I’ve been waiting too long,” Rebecca said, her heart begging release from the emptiness and yearning that haunted her days. “I’m fast becoming an old maid.” Rebecca scrunched up her face and hunched her back, cackling like a madwoman at her younger siblings.

  They giggled and looked at each other as if she was getting dotty.

  “What are you laughing at?” Rebecca asked her ten-year-old sister, Hannah, a little brown-eyed beauty. “It won’t be long before you’re eager to see your own beau.”

  “Ewww,” Hannah said. “Boys are pests.”

  “They can be,” Rebecca agreed, and laughed at Tyler’s offended frown.

  “We’re only pests ‘cause you girls won’t leave us be,” Ty said.

  He was extremely bright and worldly for an eight-year-old, something Rebecca attributed to his spending too much time with his older brothers. Will and Joshua frequently forgot that Ty was years younger than the two of them and that their conversations were inappropriate for a boy his age.

  Rebecca smiled at the children she was helping to raise. “I’m going to miss you little sass-buckets when I marry Adam and move to my own house.”

  “I’m not a sass-bucket!” Sarah said, spilling her scrambled eggs off her fork.

  “I was jesting, sweetie.” Rebecca planted a kiss on the top of Sarah’s head of brown silky curls. “You’re sweet as Mama’s apple pie, and I’m hoping you and Hannah will help me take care of my babies when I have them.”

  “I take care of Emma already, don’t I?” Sarah asked, shifting her green gaze in search of their mother’s confirmation. At six, all pigtails and innocence, Sarah was already a charmer.

  “You certainly do.” Their mother picked up Tyler’s empty plate. “I don’t know what I’d do without your help.”

  “I help, too,” Ty grumbled.

  Their mother pushed his dark hair out of his eyes. “Of course you do. With your father and brothers at the mill so often, you’re my man around here.”

  His cheeks flamed and he shot out of his chair, heading toward the door.

  She caught his shoulder and turned him toward the stairs. “Please tell Joshua if he isn’t up and dressed in five minutes I’ll be in to wake him up.”

  Rebecca smiled at the warning note in her mother’s voice. She was a sweet and loving mama to all of them, but at one time or another they had all learned the danger of making her angry.

  “I won’t be eating this morning,” Rebecca said. “I have to check on Star before Mr. Uldridge gets here.”

  “Take a biscuit with you,” her mother suggested. “Calvin will wait, especially if you take a biscuit for him, too.”

  So Rebecca headed to the livery with two biscuits and a heart filled with love. She was blessed in more ways than any single person deserved, and she felt deeply grateful for all she had.

  Adam’s life had been the opposite and extremely difficult. Their friend Leo’s life had been even worse, which was almost impossible for her to imagine. When she and Adam had found Leo and Benny hiding in the greenhouse on a frigid winter evening it changed Rebecca’s world. Leo and his baby brother were orphans with no place to go. They didn’t even have proper clothing to keep them warm. They were all much better off now, but their difficult circumstances made Rebecca realize how fortunate she was to have such a loving family—and how desperately she wanted one of her own.

  On Thursday Adam finally arrived home. The village of Fredonia with its twin parks, two-story brick buildings, and towering maple trees was a welcome sight for Adam. He was home and seeing the little village through new eyes—the eyes of a confident man who had witnessed and learned much, who was no longer that scared boy who had come here with his family seeking safety a decade earlier.

  Flowering magnolia, crabapple, and leafy maple trees lined Liberty Street, offering floral-scented shade to the homes he passed on his way to Grayson’s Livery—and the one woman he’d been aching to return to.

  Heart pounding, Adam approached the white two-story house Rebecca shared with her six siblings and their parents Radford and Evelyn Grayson. The wide front porch with a black spindle railing and four large support columns beckoned him to sit a spell. But he was headed for the big barn and livery out back that would soon need a fresh coat of paint. A garden to the left of the barn had been freshly tilled and was ready for planting. To the right of the livery, a large paddock ran across the yard and circled back behind the barn.

  A warm spring breeze, scented by the fragrant lilac bushes bordering their property, urged Adam forward. New lime-green leaves were making an appearance on the massive, sprawling oak tree in their side yard, a place Adam had spent many happy hours with Rebecca and her family.

  In New York, May was a time of birth and awakening, a time for new beginnings, a time for Adam and Rebecca to finally begin their life together.

  In one month she would be his wife.

  In one minute she would be in his arms.

  His heartbeat doubled as he dropped his bags by the stone fence that girded their property. He strode into the yard and moved past the quiet house. The red double doors at the front of the livery were open, but he knew without looking that Rebecca would be outside. He rounded the livery and went to the large paddock. In the early afternoon, Rebecca would be there training and tending her beloved horses.

  Adam knew it as surely as he knew he was never going to leave her again.

  He found her standing in the patchy grass, working with her black mare, talking to Star as if the horse u
nderstood every loving word she spoke. Rebecca’s shiny mass of onyx-colored hair, loosely bound with a blue ribbon, draped her shoulder and shirtwaist like a silk sash. Her brown skirt, shortened four inches to keep it out of the dirt and off the livery floor, showed a good bit of her leather boots, faded and worn in pursuit of her passion. She was wonderfully disheveled and vibrantly alive.

  “Rebecca?” he called softly, careful not to startle her black mare.

  She spun on her boot heel, the question in her eyes fading in the instant she saw him. Not a word or a smile moved her beautiful lips as she dropped the curry brush and crossed the rutted ground of the paddock, moving directly toward him.

  Adam leapt the split rail fence and met her beneath a low-limbed maple tree.

  Emotion pumped through him, but not a sound left his mouth. What he felt was too big, as if he were a schooner navigating an ocean, riding one massive swell of feeling after another.

  He gazed into her brown eyes, seeing her love and her pain, knowing he was the cause of both.

  Wordlessly, they reached for each other, their fingers lacing. Gazes locked, their surging emotions made them tremble.

  Robins twittered in the distance and a bee buzzed around a limb above their heads. Rebecca’s sleek black mare nickered from the far corner of the paddock as if welcoming him home. A light breeze swept a strand of Rebecca’s long hair across her cheek, and he watched it flirt with her collarbone and the rapid pulse beating in her throat.

  The breeze came off Lake Erie and Canadaway Creek where he and Rebecca once played—where they still met when he came home. The memory of her then and the sight of her now blended together in his head like a wild, wonderful painting.