by Vivi Holt
Contents
Title Page
Also by Vivi Holt
Copyright
About the Book
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Excerpt from Of Peaks and Priairies
Also by Vivi Holt
About the Author
Historical Note
SEASON OF LOVE
Cutter’s Creek (Book 11)
VIVI HOLT
www.viviholt.com
Also by Vivi Holt
Orphan Brides Go West
Mail Order Bride: Christy
Mail Order Bride: Ramona
Mail Order Bride: Katie
Mail Order Bride: Holly (coming soon!)
Cutter’s Creek
The Strong One
The Betrothed
Cherished
Paradise Valley
Of Peaks and Prairies
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Copyright © 2016 by Vivi Holt
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
About The Book
1872
Margaret Hutchins is lonely. She’s been alone since her parents died of influenza in Chicago a decade earlier. When she moves to Cutter’s Creek in Montana Territory for a fresh start, as the new teacher for the little school, she discovers a cozy community where she’s welcomed and appreciated.
Heath Moore had his heart broken by Charlotte Beaufort years ago, and he’s hesitant to court again. Until, that is, he runs into Margaret just before Christmas – she’s beautiful, intelligent and compassionate. But when she makes a decision that changes her life forever, it drives a wedge between them.
Enjoy a white Christmas in Cutter’s Creek, as a season of love unfolds in the most unlikely way.
Prologue
Nebraska Territory
July 1872
Twelve-year-old Mary Beth Singer ran beside the wagon, using a long stick to push aside the tall prairie grasses that swayed in the warm breeze. The grasses rippled for as far as she could see in every direction. She’d never seen so much expanse, so much space, such a wide and unbroken sky. The wind whipped the hair from her face and tugged at the sunbonnet that hung down her back on a string tied around her neck.
A rustle near her feet announced an escaping grass snake, and she dodged it with a start, her heart racing. There were so many new creatures on the prairie – beasts and insects of every shape and size. She felt as though her emotions were constantly swinging between boredom and heart-pounding fright. The wagon rolled steadily beside her, its spoked wheels turning in monotonous rhythm, and the plod of oxen hooves against the hard ground helped steady her breathing.
“Ma!” called the small voice of her younger sister Harriet. Harriet was ten and should have been more independent, but she was jealous of her mother’s attention, which she had to share with her twin Elspeth and their younger brothers, seven-year-old Tommy and four-year-old Danny.
Like Mary Beth, her other brother Frank, eleven, saw his younger siblings as an annoyance best avoided as much as possible. She could see him in the distance, exploring a rise on the prairie ahead, a long stick in his hand.
Ma’s head peered around the edge of the wagon, her bonnet, caught by the wind, fluttering against her lined face. “Yes, Harriet?”
“Ma, I’m tired. Can I ride in the wagon awhile, please?” whined Harriet.
“Yes, dear. Just a moment.”
Mary Beth watched Ma step from the wagon as it rumbled over the grassy ground, the same way she’d done a hundred times since they set out from Missouri in April. But this time, her skirts caught in the spokes of the front wheel. In an instant she was pulled under the wagon, which ran over her with one horrible thud, then a second as the rear wheels found their mark.
Mary Beth stood still and screamed with all her might, then ran to the wagon, holding her tears in check. Ma was hurt – how badly she couldn’t be sure. “Pa! Pa!” she yelled.
Her father, striding far ahead of the wagon, turned and ran back to them, a hand on his hat to keep it from blowing off. He grabbed the oxen’s reins and pulled them to a stop, applied the brakes, and hurried back to where Mary Beth crouched over her mother’s still form. “What happened?”
“She went under the wagon, Pa,” Mary Beth sobbed as she stroked her mother’s pale forehead. The wagons directly behind them all pulled to a stop, and she could sense people gathering around her. Harriet was close by, her sobbing lost in the wind.
Ma’s eyes were closed, and a dark bruise began to show across her cheek and neck where the wheel had hit.
“Millie, Millie!” cried Pa. “Millie my darling, wake up!” He pulled off his hat. His hair was caked to his head with sweat, and streaks of dirt marked his face where the thick beard didn’t cover. His brown eyes were full of pain.
Ma’s eyes flitted open and rested on Pa’s face. “Harold … what happened?” she whispered. Her eyes closed again and her breathing grew labored.
“You were run over, Millie, but you’ll be fine, just fine. We’ll take good care of you, don’t you worry about a thing. Just don’t you leave me, you hear? Don’t you leave us. We need you.”
She nodded slowly and lifted a hand to stroke his face. “I won’t leave you, Harold. I’m right here.”
Mary Beth sat with Ma while the others set up camp. It was only midday, but they’d go no further today. From what she could see, it looked as though Ma had a broken leg and hip. The bruises on her face and neck were black and ugly now, and one eye was swollen shut. “You’re doin’ fine, Ma. Just fine,” she said as she sobbed, pressing the hem of her brown skirt to her face to wipe away the tears. .
But Ma didn’t respond. She was asleep.
“Oh God, please help Ma,” Mary Beth whispered into the hot wind.
***
Ma died that night on the prairie. She never opened her eyes again, and the family had no chance for a goodbye. They sat around the campfire in silence except for Harriet’s sobbing. Hilton and Anne Beckworth, a couple who’d befriended them on the Oregon Trail, sat with them, Mrs. Beckworth holding Danny in her lap. Pa stared blankly into the fire.
After a while, with the moon hidden behind a thick cloud, Mary Beth spoke up. “Pa, shouldn’t we go to bed?” she asked with a catch in her voice.
He looked at her across the flames and blinked. “Yes. Yes, go to bed, children.”
They stood one by one and kissed his cheek before filing into the tent to lie down beside each other like logs in a stream. “’Night, Pa.”
“’Night,” he responded absently. He sat there all night, never moving, not even when the fire died.
When Mary Beth woke the next morning, she found him digging a hole in the grass nearby. Tears streamed down his cheeks, and he worked without a word. “Pa?” she said.
He stopped and looked at her with pity in his eyes. “Yes, pumpkin?”
“What’re you doin’?”
He coughed and jabbed at the tears with a fist. “We got to bury her, Mary Beth.”
“Oh.” She stood and watched awhile, then turned back to the wagon. The others would want breakfast, and it didn’t seem as though Pa had food on his mind.
By the time she’d finished feeding the children cold biscuits and preserves, Pa had returned. She handed him a biscuit, and he ate it in two bites without looking at any of them. “We’ll have a service after you clean up,” he said, and slouched over to where Ma still lay on the ground, a blanket drawn over her still body. He stood there for a long while, hands slack at his sides, his chest heaving. Then he lifted her into his arms and held her like a newborn baby, sobs erupting from him as he lumbered toward the grave.
Mary Beth watched him drop her mother’s body into the hole in the prairie. Then she began cleaning up the breakfast things and packing everything into the wagon. Mrs. Beckworth tried to comfort her, but she glared at her until the other woman waddled off to her own wagon, holding tight to her pregnant belly.
***
The sounds of the night picked at Mary Beth’s ears – calls, howls, rustles. For the first time they seemed loud – louder than Pa’s wheezy breathing, louder than the three children with fevers calling out for Ma and sobbing into their blankets. Pa was the worst; he’d been mumbling and rolling back and forth for hours.
Mary Beth took care of them all, sick and well. She mopped feverish foreheads with a damp cloth, lifted canteens to dry lips, and fed everyone when she got a chance. When the chills overcame her, she threw herself on her bed and slept as long as she could, then rose again to tend the others as her vision blurred and her head swam.
A month since Ma’s death, the rest of the train had moved on, leaving only them and the Beckworths behind in Wyoming Territory. Mr. and Mrs. Beckworth, afraid they’d catch the fever too, kept their distance, only looking in every few hours to bring them food and water.
By the time Pa died, the children were on the mend. They all sat in silence, looking at his still body under the blanket, unsure what to do. There was no one to tell them to get dressed, to make them comb their hair, to take the oxen to water or harness them to the wagon. So they sat around, sobbing with runny noses. What would become of them, they kept asking Mary Beth.
But she didn’t have any answers. She could think of nothing other than to dig a grave for Pa and put his body in it. But she’d never dug anything deeper than a vegetable garden in her life, and knew she’d need help to move him.
She eased herself to her feet and ran her fingers through her limp hair. “All right, children, we’ve got to get moving. We can’t stay here forever, or we’ll run out of food and die. The Beckworths pulled out this morning, but if we hurry we might catch ’em. So Frank, you’re responsible for waterin’ and harnessin’ the oxen. Elspeth and Harriet, you can start on breakfast. Tommy and Danny, you fetch water from the creek for boilin’.”
The children looked at her with reddened eyes. “You don’t get to order us around,” said Frank, crossing his arms over his thin chest.
“Yes I do. I’m the oldest, and Ma and Pa are dead. I’m in charge, and I’m not lettin’ anyone else die. I won’t allow it. We have to keep goin’ west, since there’s nowhere else to go anyhow, and to do that we have to work together. So help me, I’ll find a hickory switch and tan your hides raw if you don’t do as I say.” She stamped her foot and punched one fist into her open palm, her eyes snapping at them.
They each groaned and complained, but stood to their feet and followed her orders.
She dug a hole and dragged Pa’s body to it on his blanket. Then she rolled him in, watching in dismay as the blanket fell with him. She sat on the edge of the hole in the middle of that wide-open prairie, puffing and heaving as tears dripped from her cheeks to the dirt below.
“Come, children!” she finally called. “We have to say a prayer for Pa.”
Chapter One
Cutter’s Creek, Montana Territory
December 1872
Mary Beth opened her eyes and gasped. Sweat streamed from her flesh, wetting the blankets that covered her straw tick.
She was in Cutter’s Creek, living with the Beckworths. After Pa died, the children had hurried the oxen across the prairie, following the flattened grasses of the wagon trail, until they caught up to the Beckworths and their darkened and tattered covered wagon. Together they’d made their way north across Wyoming Territory and into Montana Territory.
Dreams of that time on the prairie woke her most nights, and always followed the same theme: death and fear. She sat up straight in bed and wrapped her thin arms around her bony knees, pulling them close to her chest. She rocked herself back and forth, her eyes wide and unblinking in the darkness. She felt so very alone and sad, and wondered if that would ever fade. It left a hard, heavy feeling in her chest, and her throat always seemed to ache.
She closed her eyes and whispered into the night. “Dear God, thank Ya for gettin’ us to Cutter’s Creek. Thank Ya for everythin’ Ya’ve given us. Please take care of me and Frank, Elspeth, Harriet, Tommy and Danny. Heal this pain in my throat that seems to always be pushin’ its way up and makin’ me wanna sob.
“I know I should appreciate Mr. and Mrs. Beckworth for bringin’ us here with ‘em and takin’ me in, but I can’t help it – I don’t wanna be with ‘em. I wanna be with my family. Please make a way for us all to be together again. I can look after us all, I know I can. I don’t want anyone else takin’ care of us, just me. No one else cares about us, truly they don’t – they’re just doin’ what they think people want ‘em to, or what they should do.
“But we don’t need ‘em. We don’t need any of ‘em. Please God, make a way for us to be together without no one else interferin’. That’s what they’re doin’ – interferin’ in what’s none of their business. I know I shouldn’t hold hate in my heart, God. I know it’s wrong. But I just can’t seem to help it. Maybe You can help me with that. Thanks for listenin’ anyhow. Amen.”
***
A fire burned cheerily in the hearth of the Todds’ cozy living room. The chicory coffee was thick and black, and the scent of it and cake wafted around the space and made Margaret Hutchins’ mouth water. She breathed deeply, drawing in the smell, and clasped the cup of coffee with both hands, feeling the heat seep into them.
As she sat across from Estelle Todd and Camilla Brentwood, she marveled at how her life had changed. She’d only been in Cutter’s Creek for eighteen months, and already she’d made a number of good friends. She felt as though the tiny town was her home – which was more than she could say for anywhere else she’d lived since Ma and Pa died of influenza a decade earlier.
She’d been looking for a fresh start when she saw the newspaper advertisement one Saturday back in Chicago, calling for applications to work at a school in Montana Territory. City life had lost its appeal – she’d grown tired of the monotony of work and solitary meals alone in her small apartment. The idea of living on the frontier and teaching children who really needed her had sparked her interest, and she couldn’t get it out of her mind. She’d applied by letter, and was surprised when she received a reply months later from the Rev. Howard Latsch, offering her the job.
Her aunt was startled but not put out when Margaret announced her intention to go west. She’d packed up her canvases, oil paints and brushes, along with a trunk of clothes and whatever small items she could fit into her carpetbag, and headed to Montana and the adventure of the pioneering life.
Cammie smiled at her through the steam rising from her own cup and took a sip. “So Meg, tell me, have you any new beaus I don’t know about? I feel like I’ve been completely out of touch lately, what with the wedding and settling into the new house – this year has simply flown by. Tell me everything!” She leaned forward and smoothed her skirts with one hand as she balanced her cup and saucer in the other.
“Nothing like that, Camilla dear. I’ve had a couple of the local ranchers ask to court me, but I had to tell them no thank you. I firmly believe that the single life is preferable to
a life with any old body. There would have to be … a connection, something powerful, to push me to merge my life with another. If it’s God’s will, that man will find me. If not, I’m perfectly content with the way things are. So for now, single is what I am, and single is how I’ll stay.”
Cammie laughed and her eyes sparkled. “Meg, you do say the most thought-provokin’ things.” She grinned. “That must be why I like you so much. Well, that and your tea cake, of course.”
Margaret grinned. “And what about you, Camilla? How is married life treating you?” She took another sip and placed her cup on the small side table next to the horsehair settee on which she sat, her back as straight as a ramrod.
Camilla closed her eyes for a moment and filled her lungs with a single long breath. “Oh Meg, it’s truly wonderful – each day better than the one before. I honestly can’t imagine not spending every day with my darling Clifford. And to think it wasn’t so long ago we barely knew each other. I have to push him out the door to go to work each morning, he so hates to be away from me. It’s almost as if I’m living in a dream world.”
Margaret patted Cammie’s hand softly and smiled. “Now that’s how it should be. That’s what I’m looking for. And unless I find it, I’ll live my life quite contentedly as the spinster schoolmarm with the paint-smudged face and eccentric pieces of artwork hung all over her quirky old farmhouse.” She scratched at a smear of oil paint on the back of her hand absently. Now that winter had well and truly arrived, she wouldn’t be likely to get any more painting done until spring. Such was life in Montana.
Estelle and Camilla chuckled and exchanged an amused glance. “How is the old Cuthbert place treating you?” asked Estelle.