His head lowered. His lips touched hers.
The first kiss of her life. The sweetest kiss she could imagine.
“Melanie, that box has one more secret to tell.”
“What?”
Then he kissed her again, and she didn’t care much about that box, no matter how it had taken them on a journey to find each other.
“There!” A harsh voice shocked Melanie out of the romantic daze, and she jerked her head toward the schoolhouse door.
“I demand she be fired.” Mrs. Rathbone stormed into the schoolhouse with the parson, the doctor, and Mr. Weber right behind her.
Parson Howard arched a brow. “Hank, what’s going on?”
“That’s a stupid question, Parson.” Doc Cross smiled at Melanie.
Mr. Weber alone looked shocked. “I can see how upsetting this is to you, Magda. Of course, we can’t keep a young lady who’d behave so scandalously working here.”
“What?” Melanie needed a job.
“And she won’t sleep another night under my roof.”
Gasping, Melanie said, “It’s snowing out and bitter cold. And you’d throw me out of your home?”
“And what’s more, she’s a thief.”
“Thief?” Melanie cried. “I am not a thief.”
“What about that box?” Mrs. Rathbone jabbed a finger at the box just as Simon came up beside her, holding it, its many hidden drawers now wide open.
“But you told me I could have it. I asked again this morning.”
“You did no such thing. You’re a thief and a liar. Mr. Weber, Hank can’t be trusted to do the sheriff’s job. Please take over.”
The fear that swept through Melanie nearly choked her. Mrs. Rathbone was just spiteful enough to demand Melanie be arrested.
Simon stormed right up to Mrs. Rathbone.
“No, Simon, come back.” Melanie remembered in a flash all the changes that had come over Simon in the last month. But now he nearly quaked with anger. If he believed Melanie had lied and stolen—for heaven’s sake, stolen a gift for him—would it undo all the good Melanie had done?
He shoved the box right at Mrs. Rathbone’s ample belly. “Here, take the box. Miss Douglas isn’t a thief. But if you want it back, you can have it.”
Magna caught the box by reflex then gave it a distasteful look. Melanie knew the old bat didn’t want that box. She just wanted to cause trouble. Walking in on a kiss was one good way to accomplish her goal. Had the woman agreed Melanie could have that box with the plan of accusing her of theft? Or had the woman just seen it in the schoolhouse and seized on another accusation.
With one quick move, Hank snatched the box out of Magda’s hands.
Mrs. Rathbone squawked like an angry rooster.
“You can have it back in just a minute.” Hank looked at the three men standing a step behind her. “And you can all just stay right here for a while longer. I think I can clear all this up.”
“I’d appreciate it if you would,” Doc Cross said with weary amusement that didn’t match the emotional temperature of this upsetting meeting. “And be quick about it. My wife is holding supper.”
Hank turned with the box and brought it to Melanie. He let go of it with one hand and touched Simon’s shoulder. “Stay right here with me, Son. This is from both of us.”
“You can’t give her that box as a gift; it’s mine.” Magda was still storming around.
“I won’t give her the box.” Hank manipulated two boards while holding the box nearly on its side and the slot tipped open.
“Reach in. Today it was my turn to bring a gift for you.”
Melanie saw the sincerity in his eyes and slowly reached in the tiny dark gap he’d opened. She grasped something and pulled it out. “A ring.”
Nodding, Hank said, “A wedding ring. Marry me, Melanie. You have no home to go to, so we can marry and you’ll come home with me.”
Her stomach sank as she heard the practical reasons she should marry. And a lonely child who’d never been loved couldn’t help noticing he hadn’t said the one thing she wanted above all to hear. “Th–that isn’t a good reason to get married.”
“Then just marry me because I love you.”
She gasped in delight. Hank leaned down and caught that gasp with his kiss. He pulled back. “Say yes, Melanie, marry me. Then let’s finish this Advent journey we’ve been on. Let’s end it at our home.”
Hank’s hand left her arm to rest on Simon’s head. The little boy grinned up at her in what looked like glee. “Marry us, Miss Douglas. We love you.”
Melanie couldn’t stop the grin that spread across her face, though so many looked on and she’d been accused of terrible things.
“Yes, I’ll marry you.” She looked at sweet Simon. Then her eyes lifted to meet Hank’s gaze. She couldn’t look away. “I’ll marry you for one reason only, Hank. Because I love you, too.”
Hank turned to face the four people who’d witnessed his proposal. He handed the now-empty box back to Mrs. Rathbone. “You can have that, ma’am.”
Magda looked at it with a scowl. “Oh, just keep the ugly old thing.” She slammed it onto a desktop and walked out in a huff.
“Parson, as long as you’re here, will you say some vows and give us your blessing?” Hank asked. “And, Doc, Mr. Weber, will you be witnesses?”
Both men grinned. Doc Cross said, “Make it quick, Parson, my wife is a fine cook.”
They said their vows, and Melanie received the finest gift of all. The gift of being an Advent bride.
Hank slid the ring on Melanie’s finger at just the right time. Simon hugged the Advent box tight. Then the three of them walked home.
Just as Mary and Joseph, on that long-ago Christmas, had completed their Advent journey, now Melanie, Hank, and Simon completed theirs: a journey that brought them to Christmas, to family, to love.
About the Author
Mary Connealy writes romantic comedy about cowboys. She is a Carol Award winner and a Rita, Christy, and Inspirational Reader’s Choice finalist. She is the bestselling author of the Wild at Heart series, which recently began with book number one, Tried & True. She is also the author of the Trouble in Texas series, Kincaid Bride series, Lassoed in Texas Trilogy, Montana Marriages Trilogy, Sophie’s Daughters Trilogy, and many other books. Mary is married to a Nebraska rancher and has four grown daughters and three spectacular grandchildren. Find Mary online at www.maryconnealy.com.
The Christmas Tree Bride
by Susan Page Davis
Chapter 1
Stage Stop along the Oregon Trail Wyoming, 1867
Polly Winfield dashed about the dining room, setting up. On days the stage came through, she and her mother always prepared to serve a full table. The passengers would eat quickly, reboard the stagecoach, and hurry away toward the next station.
Polly didn’t mind the hectic mornings on Wednesdays. The stage was heading west, and that meant Jacob Tierney would be driving it. He would blow the brass horn to announce their arrival and canter the horses the last few hundred yards, to put on a good show. After the passengers gulped down Ma’s stew and biscuits and pie, they would go on, but Jacob would stay.
The young man had recently landed the job as replacement driver for old Norm Hatfield, who had been injured in a driving mishap when his team was spooked by lightning and ran away with the stage. If Norm recovered, or if the division agent hired another permanent driver, Jacob wouldn’t come by the Winfield Station anymore. But that wouldn’t happen for a while. At least, Polly hoped not. She liked Jacob enormously, and he had told her he expected to drive the route another three or four weeks, until the line stopped operation for the winter.
The best part of the arrangement was that Jacob stayed at the Winfields’ home station from Wednesday until Saturday, when the stage returned, heading east. The driver on that run, Harry Smith, would stay there from Saturday until Jacob returned the following Wednesday. They each had a run of 120 miles or so, covering six stations. On their
days between runs, the drivers could do whatever they pleased. If Polly had anything to say about it, Jacob would be pleased to further their acquaintance.
Ma bustled through the kitchen doorway carrying two covered baskets. “They’ll be here any minute. Set these out and fill the water pitchers.”
Polly took the baskets and set them on the table, enjoying the fresh scent of baking. The passengers always raved about Ma’s flaky biscuits. Polly had heard more than once that the Winfield Station had the best food of any along the line from Fort Laramie to Salt Lake City.
She filled the pitchers with water straight from the well and made sure each place setting was perfect. Ma would serve the stew in shallow ironstone soup plates, and the diners could set their biscuits on the broad edge.
The faint call of Jacob’s horn reached her. The stage was coming down the slope from the bluffs. She longed to run outside and watch him guide the team in, but Ma would have a fit if she disappeared now. Their job was to get the meal on the table and make sure every passenger was satisfied, while Pa collected the price of dinner and the tenders swapped the tired horses for a fresh team.
Jacob’s duties ended when the last passenger stepped down from the coach. He’d give Pa and Harry any news he’d picked up along the way and then mosey out back to use the necessary and wash up. When the passengers were done eating and were scrambling back into the coach, he would stroll into the dining room and grin at Polly and say, “What’s to eat?”
Polly smiled as the first passenger came through the door. The next quarter hour would be hectic but so worth the fuss. Her mother earned nearly as much with her cooking as Pa earned for running the station.
Eight men paid up and came to the table today. Ma was smiling, and Polly knew she was adding up the money in her head. The coaches had been full every week in the summer and autumn, but now cold weather was setting in and sometimes Jacob had only one or two riders. People hated riding the stage in freezing weather.
Polly filled coffee cups, brought more biscuits, and distributed slices of apple pie. She glanced out the window once. The tenders were guiding the fresh team into place.
“Got more coffee, miss?” one of the diners asked, and Polly hurried to get it.
A moment later, Harry poked his head in the doorway and yelled, “All aboard!”
Men grabbed one last bite of their dessert or a final swallow of coffee and headed out to the yard.
And there he was, leaning against the doorjamb, grinning, his whip coiled in his hand.
“What’s to eat, Polly?” he asked.
She laughed. “You know we always have beef stew on Wednesday.”
He stepped forward and took a seat at the end of the long table. “Did you save me any biscuits?”
“I always do.” Polly whisked away the dirty dishes from the table in front of him and hurried to the kitchen. “Jacob’s ready to eat.”
“What about the shotgun messenger?” Ma asked. “Is Billy Clyde with him?”
“Haven’t seen him yet,” Polly said.
Ma ladled a generous serving of stew into a soup plate. “I’m saving enough for him. Didn’t expect so many passengers today, though. They nearly cleaned me out.”
Polly carried the stew and a basket of warm biscuits into the dining room.
“Where’s Billy Clyde?” she asked Jacob.
“Out yonder, jawing with your pappy.” Jacob’s eyes lit up when she put the plate of stew before him. “I’ve been dreaming of this stew all week.”
“Naw, he ain’t,” Billy Clyde said from the doorway. “Miss Polly, he’s been dreamin’ ‘bout you.”
Polly laughed and felt her cheeks warm. “Hush you, Billy Clyde.” The shotgun rider had been with the line since it opened and stayed with it when Wells Fargo bought out the previous owners. He was nearly Pa’s age, lean and lithe. His beard showed some gray, and he limped from a wound he’d received courtesy of a road agent three years back.
Billy Clyde always teased Polly—and any other female in sight—but they said he’d never seriously courted a woman. He complained a lot, especially in bad weather when his leg ached, but he’d become a fixture at Winfield Station, and he was Pa’s closest friend.
Ma came in from the kitchen carrying a soup plate, for Billy Clyde, and two mugs.
“There you are.” She smiled at Billy Clyde.
“Couldn’t stay away,” he replied.
Polly began to stack the passengers’ dishes while Ma poured coffee and lingered to banter with Billy Clyde. Jacob tucked into his meal and seemed disinclined to talk until his belly was filled.
Pa had warned Polly when they first moved here last year to keep away from the men, but she was sure he mostly meant the tenders. They were rough-hewn and loud, and they cursed and played poker in the bunkroom that was part of the barn. Billy Clyde might be unpolished, and he might even join the poker game now and then, but he was always polite, and Pa seemed confident that his women were safe around him.
Jacob was altogether different, quieter and more courteous than the others. When a chore needed doing, he offered to help, whether it was sweeping the dining room or toting firewood. He never gambled with the other men. Last week, Polly heard Billy Clyde confide to Pa, “Young Tierney won’t even go near the saloon at the fort. And I offered to buy.” Maybe Billy Clyde considered that unmanly, but it was music to Polly’s ears.
She hummed a hymn as she washed the dishes. From the dining room, the men’s cheerful voices reached her. Wednesday was Polly’s favorite day of the week, hands down.
Pa came in, carrying two coffee mugs. “New pot ready?”
“Should be.” Polly resumed her humming as she scrubbed the empty stew pot.
“Oh, there’s something for you in the mail, Polly.”
“For me?”
“Yes—from your friend Ava.”
Polly dried her hands on her apron and dashed into the dining room. The small pile of mail lay on the table by Pa’s empty chair. Beneath two envelopes he had opened, she found a colorful square postal card. She gasped and picked it up.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” Jacob said.
Polly nodded. “It’s a Christmas tree.”
“I’ve never seen one,” Billy Clyde said.
The pictured evergreen was decked in glass ornaments and small candles, the way the Germans trimmed their trees. Polly turned the card over and smiled at the sight of Ava’s handwriting.
Miss you. Hope you have a good Christmas. We are going to my grandmother Neal’s. Love, Ava
Her father came in from the kitchen carrying the mugs, now filled with steaming coffee.
“Pa, can we have a Christmas tree this year?” Polly asked.
“What do you want with that foolishness?” Pa asked, but his tone wasn’t sharp.
“Oh, come on, Pa. We always had one back home.”
Pa set one mug in front of Billy Clyde and the other before Jacob and sat down. “Polly, this is home now. And trees are hard to come by in Wyoming. I’m a busy man, and I don’t have time to traipse around looking for a Christmas tree.”
Polly sighed and turned the card over to gaze at the beautiful tree. The artist had drawn it in a background of fluffy snow, but she doubted anyone would really decorate a tree outdoors like that. Still, it was pretty, and a saucy red bird perched on the highest branch, more beautiful than the hand-blown ornaments.
“Polly,” her mother called from the kitchen.
She tucked the card into the pocket of her dress and hurried back to her chores.
A few minutes later, her father poked his head in the doorway. “The men are done eating. You can clear the table.”
Polly turned partway around and caught his eye. “Are you sure we can’t find a tree somewhere, Pa?”
He sighed. “I told you, I don’t have time. But the men don’t have much to do for the next couple of days. Why don’t you ask them to get you one?”
Pa left the kitchen, but Polly didn’t go back to humming. Was
a Christmas tree such a hard thing to find out here? Of course, they had fewer trees than back in New England. But still …
She missed a lot of things about Massachusetts, and no matter what Pa said, she still thought of it as home.
On her arrival at the stage stop with her mother a year and a half ago, Polly was excited by the newness of everything. She had immediately been pressed into service, but she didn’t mind. She was contributing to the family’s income.
She kept very active in the summer and autumn. When she wasn’t needed to prepare meals, serve, do dishes, or perform other chores, she explored the rolling grasslands around their new home. She loved the wildflowers and her frequent sightings of birds, prairie dogs, coyotes, and now and then a herd of antelope. But the birds and flowers here looked different, and there were no neat little villages or close neighbors. She missed her friends, especially Ava. She missed the trees, too. No spreading maples out here, no hardy oaks or waving birches.
And she had not been prepared for the bleak winter of the prairie.
Last winter she had keenly felt the isolation of the station. She and Ma had stitched a quilt, curtains, and several items of clothing for the family. The stagecoaches couldn’t get through for nearly three months, and in all that time they’d had only one another to talk to, besides an occasional hardy trapper who ventured out on snowshoes, one cavalry detail, and a couple of small bands of Shoshone who stopped in, hoping to trade.
The Indians had frightened Polly a little, but they seemed friendly enough. Pa had allowed Polly to trade a pair of outgrown shoes for a small beaded pouch that now housed her embroidery needle and silk thread. The items for her fancywork had been a gift from her grandmother one Christmas, and the thought lowered Polly’s spirits even further. No more Christmas gifts under the tree. No more Christmas Day visits to Grandpa and Grandma Winfield’s house for a huge turkey dinner with her aunts and uncles and cousins.
As she tossed the dishwater out the back door, Polly noticed how dark the sky was. Maybe they would have snow before nightfall. The air was certainly cold enough.
The 12 Brides of Christmas Collection Page 20