His Yuletide Bride

by Merry Farmer

  “If we want to have the kind of life that you deserve, without having to scrimp and save to scrape by, then yeah, I’ll have to go back to my old job in San Francisco.”

  Apparently, he said the wrong thing.

  “How could you?” Bebe raged, punching him in the arm. “After everything we’ve been through, after what we did the other day. How could you just leave me again? Again. How dare you walk out on me a second time?”

  “Whoa, whoa. Bebe, wait.”

  “You are a terrible, horrible person, Hubert Strong. You’re a faithless, lying, toad.”

  “Hold on there a second.”

  “You’re a heartless, feckless villain is what you are, and I’ll never forgive you. Never.”

  “Bebe.” He grabbed her forearms, holding her tightly.

  “Vivian was right.”

  “Vivian?” Dread filled Hubert’s gut, but with it, understanding.

  “She told me you would leave me again. She was right. All men are pigs.”

  “I’m not leaving you,” Hubert told her in a loud voice. Maybe a little too loud. More than a few of the passengers waiting to board the train craned their necks to see what was going on.

  Bebe continued to wriggle and squirm in Hubert’s grip, so he slid an arm around her waist and tugged her close. That stopped her struggling in a hurry. Her cheeks were still pink and her eyes still bright with emotion, but she glanced up at him with a flare of desire.

  “I’m not leaving you,” Hubert repeated.

  “But…but you’re going back to San Francisco,” she said, her voice tight and squeaky.

  Hubert let out a breath and grinned at her. Let everyone call him a fool for loving such a temperamental vixen. No doubt they’d have more than a few fights in the years to come. But he looked forward to it. He’d always loved Bebe’s energy and her determination to stand up for herself. To prove it, he leaned in and kissed her.

  She squeaked, tensing for a moment before softening. Her sound of protest turned to a long, heartfelt sigh. It didn’t matter how many people were watching them, Hubert took his time, caressing her lips with his own, sliding his tongue alongside hers until she was purring instead of hissing.

  “Now,” he said once she was loose and warm in his arms. “What exactly did Vivian tell you?”

  Bebe made a few weak sounds before her voice formed into words. “She told me you were abandoning me, going back to San Francisco.”

  Hubert blinked. “And?”

  Bebe frowned. “And what? Are you leaving or aren’t you?”

  Hubert clenched his jaw, beginning to see that he was right not to trust Vivian. “Did she tell you anything else?”

  “Like what?” Bebe’s anger began to wake anew.

  “Did Vivian tell you anything else?”

  Bebe’s anger shifted to confusion. “Someone paid off the loan on the ranch.”

  “Someone?” Hubert growled, furious. There was no way that Vivian Bonneville would keep that kind of information from her sister. No way.

  “Do you know who?” Bebe asked, expectation making her seem several years younger all of a sudden.

  “Yeah,” Hubert nodded, grinning. “Me.”

  Bebe flinched. “You?” Her eyes went wide. “You paid off our loan?”

  “I did.”

  “You?”

  “Are you surprised?”

  “Yes! Why would you do that?”

  “Because I love you, and I want you to be happy.”

  “But…but….” She shook her head, looking utterly baffled. Then she glared up at him. “Why didn’t Vivian tell me?”

  “I don’t have the first clue. Your sisters are a mystery to me, and one I don’t particularly care to solve.”

  “How could she?” Bebe blinked. Hubert could feel the restless, angry energy coursing through her as she quivered in his arms. Then she blinked and turned all of that energy on him. “How could you?”

  “How could I pay off your loan?”

  “No!” She stomped. “After all that, how could you still go back to San Francisco.”

  “Because I used my life savings to pay the loan. And I can’t earn enough in Haskell to give you the life you deserve.”

  “And how is leaving me alone with a sister who deceived me and…and pulled my hair out going to solve anything?” Bebe shouted.

  “I’m not—she pulled your hair out?”

  “She tried to keep me from leaving the ranch to find out why you were leaving,” Bebe said, her eyes glassy with frustrated tears. “She was downright frightening.”

  The pieces suddenly fit into place. Hubert let out a breath and hugged her.

  “So let me get this straight. Vivian told you I was leaving, but she didn’t tell you I paid off the loan.”

  “Yes.”

  “And she tried to keep you from coming after me to demand an explanation.”

  “She did.”

  “Don’t you think that’s because she didn’t want you finding out I paid the loan?”

  She paused before slowly answering. “That makes sense.”

  “And don’t you think she also tried to stop you from leaving and coming with me?”

  Bebe pulled back so fast it nearly knocked Hubert off balance. “Going with you?”

  “Yes,” Hubert laughed, both frustrated by how hard it was to share something so simple and relieved that they were finally cutting through the confusion. “I want you to come to San Francisco with me.”

  Bebe’s already pink cheeks flushed scarlet. “But…I thought….” She shook her head. “Go with you?”

  “Yes.” Hubert pulled her back into his embrace, holding her tight. “I never want to live without you again, Bebe. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything. I knew you wouldn’t feel right about leaving your sisters when they were in a pinch, but now that they’re not in a pinch, well, I thought you might like a fresh start somewhere else.”

  “But I can’t….” She leaned back and looked up at him. “Can I?”

  Hubert kissed her lightly. “It was your father who stopped you from coming with me all those years ago. Rex is gone now. You’re a grown woman, capable of making your own decisions. If you want to come with me, well, then nothing would make me happier.”

  “San Francisco.” Bebe spoke the word breathlessly. Excitement transformed her from frustrated and miserable to full of joy and brimming with youth in a heartbeat. “I could live in a big city. We could live in one of those new skyscraper buildings.”

  Hubert laughed. “Well, maybe not exactly. But if you want to live five stories off the ground and walk up all those stairs, we can.”

  “And could we go to the theater? And eat in fine restaurants?”

  “As soon as we could afford to, yes.” He kissed her. “We could do whatever you wanted.”

  “I’ll help out,” she vowed. “Whatever it takes. I’ll get a job sewing or teaching, or anything, really, if it will help us.”

  “You don’t have to,” Hubert said, and when she started to frown, he said, “But if you want to, I won’t stop you.”

  “Good.” A confident smile spread across her face. It sent shockwaves of desire through Hubert. There would never be a dull moment in his life with Bebe.

  “And who knows,” he went on. “I might end up being sent overseas as a correspondent once again. We could visit Japan, China, India. We could travel the world if you want to.”

  “That would be divine,” Bebe sighed. She threw her arms around Hubert’s neck and hugged him for all she was worth. “I’m so sorry I doubted you.”

  “It’s all right,” he said, hugging her back, tenderness filling him. “You haven’t exactly had a lot of reasons to trust people in your life. But I promise you, I will never be false with you, and I will never leave you again.”

  “And I promise that I won’t fly off the handle whenever I feel uncertain about things. I’ll do everything in my power to be a good, calm, happy wife.”

  Hubert laughed. “Who s
aid I wanted that?”

  “Isn’t that what all men want?” She leaned back and looked at him with one brow arched.

  Hubert chuckled and kissed her. “Bebe, I’ve loved you since I was a boy, in spite of how spoiled you used to be and in spite of everybody telling me not to get involved with a Bonneville girl. I’ve loved you because of your fire. If you suddenly turned into a meek and mild woman, I’d know something was wrong.”

  “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or an insult.” She planted one hand on her hip.

  “It’s the highest compliment of all, my darling.” He circled his arms more tightly around her, grinning. “I love you for who you are, and I would never want you to change. I want you to always be my fickle, prickly, proud, strong Bebe.”

  “Bebe Strong,” she said with a smile, sliding her arms around his waist. “I like the sound of that.”

  “So do I,” Hubert said, kissing her as if all the world were suddenly theirs.

  Epilogue

  Tokyo, Japan – April, 1887

  Bebe had always loved springtime, but nothing had prepared her for her first sight of the cherry blossoms of Japan.

  “It’s…it’s as if heaven itself had opened up and planted trees on earth,” she said to Hubert as the two of them walked arm and arm through the elegant paths of the Shinjuku Gyoen, one of Tokyo’s imperial gardens. Hubert had secured access for the two of them thanks to his journalistic connections, and Bebe was grateful for it.

  “Yeah.” Hubert shrugged, seemingly nonchalant. “It’s pretty.”

  Bebe smacked his arm. “It’s more than pretty. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “It’s not the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Hubert said.

  “How can you say that? Every one of these blossoms is perfection.” She reached up to brush her fingertips over a branch they were walking under. Petals fluttered down like pale pink snow, taking her breath away.

  “It’s nice,” Hubert agreed, mischief in his eyes.

  “And whoever tends these lawns should be given a medal,” Bebe went on. “I’ve never seen anything so green in my life.”

  “That’s because you’re used to the landscape in southern Wyoming,” Hubert told her. “The high prairie isn’t exactly known for lush vegetation.”

  “That’s true, but there were some areas around San Francisco that were green.”

  She’d loved San Francisco from the moment she and Hubert arrived just before Valentine’s Day. They had stayed in Haskell for New Year’s, then planned a speedy wedding for the end of January. Vivian was livid about every aspect of Bebe’s and Hubert’s happiness, but she was powerless to stop it. When she put her foot down and forbid Bebe to take a single thing from the ranch, Bebe was forced to start over with nothing but the clothes on her back.

  Fortunately for her, Honoria and Solomon had taken her in without a moment’s hesitation. Hubert’s sisters and Elspeth had gifted her with a whole new wardrobe as a wedding present. The only things that Bebe regretted being forced to give up were the portrait of her mother and a necklace belonging to her, and Glory. Honoria had promised to try to talk Vivian into parting with their mother’s things, and in the end, Bebe had decided that with or without her, Glory would be happier on a ranch than in the city.

  But when Hubert had been given a new assignment in Tokyo a year after they were married, Bebe discovered that there truly was an entire world for her to explore, just like Hubert had promised.

  “I should really buy some postcards of the garden to send to Vivian and Melinda,” Bebe said as they turned a corner to walk alongside a shining lake.

  “Do they ever write back to you?” Hubert asked.

  “No,” Bebe sighed. “But I feel like I should at least try to keep in touch. And if I ever confronted her about it, I’m sure Vivian would say she’s been too busy for idle correspondence.”

  Indeed, Vivian had been busy in the last year. After Hubert paid off the debt, the ranch had just enough money to continue business through the breeding season. It was a stroke of luck that the herd increased more than usual, and that the livestock they sold that year fetched such a good price. Although Bebe suspected that the Bonneville herd always fetched a good price, and that the Price had pocketed the difference for far too long. Even though neither Vivian nor Melinda wrote to her—or attended her wedding or even spoke to her after she was married—she was able to glean what was going on at the ranch through second-hand reports. It was reassuring to know that Vivian had wised up and was taking control of things with an iron hand, but Bebe shuddered to think what kind of woman Vivian was becoming.

  But she had very little space in her thoughts for something as miserable as Vivian and the ranch when she was surrounded by so much exquisiteness.

  “All right,” she sighed as she and Hubert walked on. “You might not think the trees and the grass are the most magnificent thing you’ve ever seen, but what about the flowers? We don’t have half of these species in Haskell.” She gestured around at the colorful chrysanthemums that lined the pathways.

  “The flowers are okay.”

  Bebe huffed in frustration. “Well what about the gorgeous tea house over there? What is it called again, a pagoda?”

  Hubert chuckled. “No, no a pagoda is a building with multiple tiers, like that one.” He pointed beyond the garden’s walls to a temple that stood a few streets away. Its unique architecture towered above the other houses of the city’s street. “The tea house is just a pretty building.”

  “Ha! So you admit that it’s pretty?” Bebe teased him.

  “Of course it’s pretty,” Hubert said. “All of this is pretty. Very pretty, in fact.”

  Bebe stopped and turned to him, planting her hands on her hips. “You said it wasn’t beautiful.”

  Hubert shook his head, then took her hands. “I said none of this, none of this amazing example of nature at its best, is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  She arched an eyebrow at him. “Really? Then what is?”

  His smile grew. “You,” he said, raising her hands to his lips and kissing them.

  In an instant, Bebe was ready to melt into a puddle at his feet. Hubert had a way of doing that to her. And while she still had a long way to go before her tendency to distrust—born of more than two decades of living with her father and Vivian—completely went away, but there were times when Hubert made her feel like the luckiest woman in the world.

  “You won’t be able to say that forever, you know,” she said, cheeks going pink. Perhaps that was a good time to let him in on the secret she’d been keeping from him.

  “Never,” he said. “I don’t care what happens, where we go, or what wonders we see. You will always be the most beautiful thing in the world to me.”

  “Hmm.” She slipped one of her hands out of his and pressed it to her stomach. “I hope this one isn’t a girl, then. She might not like her daddy thinking anyone is more beautiful than her.”

  Hubert blinked, his smile fading to surprise, then growing a thousand times brighter. “This one?”

  Bebe nodded, bursting into a smile herself. “I was waiting for the right time to tell you. This seemed like it.”

  “Bebe.” He laughed, then scooped her into his arms and whirled her around.

  She giggled, dizzy with joy and spinning. When he put her down, he pulled her into his arms and gave her a kiss so long and passionate that she feared the local authorities would come after them to break it up.

  “You’ve made me the happiest man in the world already,” he said at last. “This just adds to that happiness.”

  “And with any luck, there will be more and more to add over time,” Bebe went on. “Because I’m pretty sure we used up all of our bad days already.”

  “We most certainly have,” he said, kissing her again. “I’ll make sure every day for the rest of our life is a good one.”

  And, finally, she believed him.

  And now, I have g
ood news and bad news. The bad news is that this is it, the last book in my Brides of Paradise Ranch series. But the good news is that it isn’t the last you’ll ever read about Haskell, Wyoming and the people who live there! In fact, coming this summer (2018) I’ll be starting a whole new series, Haskell Heritage, which takes place starting in the 1890s and follows the lives and loves of the children of some of your favorite characters from the Brides of Paradise Ranch, the Hot on the Trail series, and the Montana Romance series, as well as a few surprise appearances from characters in the West Meets East series. If you’d like a sneak peek at what’s to come, check out the bonus story, A Haskell Christmas Reunion, included with the Hot on the Trail, Volume One box set, available now.

  Also, new for 2018, I’ll be writing romance set in Victorian Britain in the 1880s, involving slightly older (but still incredibly yummy) heroes, The Silver Foxes of Westminster. Book one in the series, December Heart, is available for pre-order now, and you might just recognize the estate, Starcross Castle, and some of the servants of the house from my West Meets East series. Look for stories that take place “upstairs” with the nobility and “downstairs” among the regular folks in this sexy new series!

  Be sure to sign up for my newsletter so that you can be alerted when all of these exciting books are released!

  Click here for a complete list of other works by Merry Farmer.

  About the Author

  I hope you have enjoyed His Yuletide Bride. If you’d like to be the first to learn about when new books in the series come out and more, please sign up for my newsletter here: http://eepurl.com/cbaVMH And remember, Read it, Review it, Share it! For a complete list of works by Merry Farmer with links, please visit http://wp.me/P5ttjb-14F.

  Merry Farmer is an award-winning novelist who lives in suburban Philadelphia with her cats, Torpedo, her grumpy old man, and Justine, her hyperactive new baby. She has been writing since she was ten years old and realized one day that she didn't have to wait for the teacher to assign a creative writing project to write something. It was the best day of her life. She then went on to earn not one but two degrees in History so that she would always have something to write about. Her books have reached the Top 100 at Amazon, iBooks, and Barnes & Noble, and have been named finalists in the prestigious RONE and Rom Com Reader’s Crown awards.