Ariel opened her eyes wide and pretended amazement. “That big?”
“Oui, chérie.” A slow smile tilted the corners of his lips upward, followed by a look of pure mischief. “We will have to be careful or she will spoil our little Ariel and Jean when they come.”
Ariel felt hot color surge into her face. She fled, pursued by Jean’s boyish laughter.
Early on Christmas Eve, Ariel stood in the darkened alcove at the back of the hall chosen as the only place big enough in town to hold her wedding guests. Her heart did a staccato beat, so loud those present must surely hear when she started forward up the aisle with her father. It was almost time. Any minute Jean and the white-haired minister who had known her since childhood would step to the front of the room.
“I intend to remember every detail of tonight,” Ariel told herself. Her hand shook as she slid the heavy curtain of her hiding place back a few inches so she could see. She breathed deep, loving the pungent smell of hemlock and pine branches tied with scarlet ribbons that pervaded the air.
Her fascinated gaze rested on candles by the score, casting their soft light on faces of many hues. She stifled merriment. What would Emmet, his mother, and their cook think of the wide variety of clothing displayed? Outdated dress suits and once-elegant gowns rubbed shoulders with plaid mackinaws and soft chamois shirts. Yet San Diego in all its splendor could not begin to compete as far as Ariel was concerned.
The curtain was pushed aside and her father held out his arm. “Ready?”
“Yes.”
A little frown appeared on his broad forehead. “No regrets, Ariel?”
She thought of her long years of heartache, not knowing where Jean had gone and why he had not kept his promise to return. Of the fool’s gold glitter from a world in which she could have never been a part, while real love waited for her just around a bend in life’s road. Of spilling water on the ship’s table and an amused voice saying, “I’m not the waiter.” Most of all, at the joy when she looked into the beloved face of the one she had thought lost to her forever.
Ariel looked into her father’s rugged face. “It’s been a long, hard road, Dad, but no regrets. Weeping truly endured for a night. Now God has replaced it with joy.”
Her father’s smile sank deep into her heart. “Come.” He held out his arm.
Pulse pounding, Ariel took it and stepped out of the alcove. One look at Jean, resplendent in a new dark suit and wearing the pride of possession, quieted her nerves. Jean, with whom she would continue the love story that had begun years ago. Step by step she went forward, increasing her pace until her father whispered, “No need to rush, Ariel. Jean isn’t going anywhere.”
“At least not without me,” she returned then wished she hadn’t. The last thing she needed was for Dad to let out a loud haw haw. Thankfully, he only grunted and led her to Jean.
“Who gives this woman to be married?” the minister asked.
“Rebekah Patten and I do,” Tom declared.
A ripple of surprise ran through the room. Ariel sneaked a glance at her aunt. Face wreathed in smiles, she nodded and dabbed at her eyes with a lace-edged handkerchief. Ariel choked up then concentrated on the service.
“Do you take this woman…?”
“Do you take this man…?”
A circlet of gold slipped onto Ariel’s ring finger. No memory of the ostentatious diamond ring she once wore rose to spoil the moment.
“What God has joined together, let no man put asunder. You may kiss your bride.”
Ariel turned to Jean as a sunflower to the sun. His lips pressed hers in a promise as binding as the wedding vows. Ariel returned his kiss amid loud clapping, followed by a stentorian roar she knew came from her old friend Carl.
“By mighty, now that’s what I call a weddin’.”
“Amen to that,” Swen chimed in.
“Not exactly the way I’d put it,” Jean murmured when they turned from the minister to face Ketchikan and the future as Mr. and Mrs. Jean Thoreau. “But close enough. Hold out your left hand again.”
Ariel obeyed. Her heart thumped when Jean slipped a second ring on her finger. A curiously carved stone of Alaskan jade, translucent and holding all the mystery of the land from which it came rested in a simple golden setting.
All through the toasts—drunk by many Ariel suspected longed for something stronger than fruit punch but stoutly insisted was nectar itself—Ariel gloated over her wonderful ring. It caught and reflected the shimmering candlelight, turning it into a rainbow on her finger. Yet she wasn’t so absorbed that she failed to notice how several of her father’s bachelor associates including Carl and Swen cast wistful glances at Aunt Rebekah, resplendent in gray taffeta.
At last Rebekah announced, “Thank you all for coming. I’m sure you want to get home and spend the rest of Christmas Eve with your families. Tom, my coat, please.” She led a general exodus toward the front door, giving Ariel the opportunity to slip out the back into the gently falling snow.
Ariel’s heart fluttered when Jean caught her in his arms at the door and ran with her to the brand-new red Ford V-8 parked behind the building, motor running. “Wedding present from Tom and Rebekah,” he whispered, tucking warm robes around her. “Wife, don’t think we’re going to be accepting such gifts in the future. We’ll make our own way.” He kissed her then hurried around the car and hopped behind the wheel. “Good. No one’s seen us. Besides,” he laughed gleefully, “they won’t recognize us if they do.”
A short drive up the narrow, winding streets Ariel loved brought them to the Thoreau home. Lamplight flickered in a window, as if dancing for joy. Jean parked the car then came around to open her door. “Tears, Ariel?”
For a moment, past misery dimmed the brightness of her wedding day. “It’s just that for so long I couldn’t stand to come here,” she choked out. “I missed you so much.”
“I know.” Jean caught her close, blankets and all. The soft swish of light snow falling like a curtain whispered sweeter in Ariel’s ears than the finest symphony when Jean carried her across the wide porch and inside. “Welcome home, wife.” He set her on her feet, shoved the door shut, and bent his dark head. His lips felt cool against her own but soon warmed her even more than the blaze in the fireplace.
At last Jean released her and unwound the enveloping wraps. He knelt and held out his hands. Ariel joined him, her wedding dress an ivory billow on the wolf-skin pelt in front of the fire. Jean took her hands in his. “We dedicate our life together to Thee, oh God, who has brought us home.”
Ariel could only brokenly whisper, “Amen.” She raised her bowed head and looked into the dark gaze that promised future happiness. Tomorrow, they would go to church and celebrate the birth of the Savior. Tomorrow, God and the weather permitting, they would board the Sea Sprite and sail to Dixon Cove.
But tonight she thanked God that a thousand snowflakes fell, shutting them away in their own private world for a brief and hallowed winterlude.
Colleen L. Reece learned to read by kerosene lamplight near her Darrington, Washington, home that was once a one-room schoolhouse where her mother taught all eight grades! Love for God and family outweighed the lack of modern conveniences and became the basis for many of Colleen’s 150+ books. Her “refuse to compromise” stance has helped sell six million+ copies and spread the good news of salvation through Christ.
Colleen is best known for helping to launch Heartsong Presents Book Club in 992 and was twice named Favorite Author in reader polls. In 1998, she and Tracie Peterson were the first authors inducted into the Heartsong Hall of Fame.
Colleen’s creed: Help make the world a better place because she lived.
Christmas Bounty
by MaryLu Tyndall
Chapter 1
August 1855
Santa Barbara, California
What kind of God would allow children to go hungry?
Caroline Moreau jingled the few coins left in her purse and gazed over the colorful assortment of fr
uits and vegetables displayed across the vendor’s cart.
“Mama.” Her son, Philippe, called to her from the next stall, where he pointed to a hunk of raw beef—enough to feed them for a week. Shooing flies away from the display, the Mexican butcher cast her a toothless grin. “You buy, señora. Good for growing boy.” She wondered whether the man ever got to enjoy the meat he sold, for he was no doubt just a farm worker employed by a rich ranchero. Regardless, her mouth watered at the sight. It had been months since she and the children had enjoyed meat for supper.
“Please, Mama.” A stiff ocean breeze tossed her eight-year-old son’s brown hair across his forehead while blue eyes alight with hope tugged on her heart.
What she wouldn’t give to satisfy that hope, but she had only enough money for a few vegetables and a sack of beans.
“Not today, Philippe.” Frowning, the boy dragged himself back to stand beside her while Abilene, her youngest, tugged on her skirts and pulled the thumb from her mouth. “I’m hungry, Mama.”
“I know, ma chère.” Caroline felt like weeping. Instead, she raised her chin and spoke to the vendor. “A red pepper, one onion, two tomatoes, and a bulb of garlic, please.” At least that would give the beans a different flavor from last week. She glanced down at the despair tugging on her children’s faces and added, “And twenty-five cents worth of cherries.”
Abilene cheered, while a tiny smile wiped the frown from Philippe’s lips. “For dessert,” Caroline said, drawing them both close.
After gathering her purchases, Caroline scurried among the throng that mobbed the busy public square, still amazed—even after living in the California coastal town for nearly three years—at the vast diversity of people inhabiting Santa Barbara. Spanish dons, attired in black embroidered coats and high-crested hats, strolled the streets with ladies in multilayered skirts, colorful silk scarves, and long, braided hair. Beside them, servants held fringed parasols to protect them from the sun. Mexican vendors and shop owners abounded, dressed in plain trousers and colorful sarapes with wide sombreros on their heads. A cowboy tipped his hat at Caroline and smiled, while the chink of coins drew her gaze to a group of gold miners exiting the bank, where, no doubt, they’d converted their gold dust into money. Facing forward, she nearly bumped into a monk. He barely acknowledged her before proceeding with his brown cowl dragging in the dirt and a Chumash Indian following on his heels.
Turning left on Bath Street, Caroline headed toward the coast, where she’d left her buckboard. The crash of waves soon drowned out the clamor of the town as sand replaced dirt, and the glory of the sea spread out before them. Sparkling ribbons of silver-crested azure waves spanned to the horizon where a thick band of fog rose like the misty walls of a fortress. When the sun set, those walls would roll in and cover everything in town just like the many hoodlums who would roll down from their hideouts in the hills to enjoy the nighttime pleasures of Santa Barbara.
The California coast was so different from New Orleans where she’d grown up. There the steamy tidewaters had been filled with all manner of shrimp, oysters, crawfish, and crabs. Here the water was icy and wild, like the city itself, and filled with kelp forests, sea lions, otters, and whales.
She drew in a deep breath of the salty breeze and allowed the wind to tear through her hair. With it came the sense of freedom she so craved but had not felt since her husband died six months ago. Shielding her eyes against the sun, she spotted a ship anchored offshore. Could it finally be the packet bringing mail to Santa Barbara? She’d sent a post home several months ago, informing her family of her dire situation, but still no response had come. But no, this ship was much smaller than the normal paddle-wheel steamship that brought the mail.
Regardless, she must get the children home before the sun sank into the sea. Santa Barbara was not a safe town at night, especially not for women and children. Though she’d heard the city hadn’t always been like that. Before the Americans arrived, the Spanish had kept it orderly and civilized, built a mission, and introduced culture. But all that had crumbled when America won the territory in 1847 and cowboys, fortune hunters, and gold miners had flooded the city. Because the town employed so few law officers, mayhem ruled, not only the streets, but the countryside as well. Every week for the past two months, vigilantes had attacked her vineyard, stealing valuable farm equipment, burning grapevines, and even striking her foreman unconscious for several hours. Caroline had spent many a sleepless night worrying for her children’s safety.
“Hear ye! Hear ye!” a man shouted first in English and then in Spanish from down shore. Caroline glanced up to see a crowd forming around a wooden scaffold. No doubt some poor criminal was being hanged. Most likely a horse thief or highwayman. At least they had caught one of them. Turning, she started toward her buckboard.
“Mama, can we go see?” Philippe asked, running beside her.
“No. We should not see such things.”
“But it’s a hanging, Mama!”
“Precisely why we are not going, Philippe.”
“Don’t you want to see who it is?” He scratched his head as if he couldn’t make sense of her attitude.
“No.”
Abilene plucked out her thumb. “Me neither,” she said.
“There you have it.” Caroline smiled. “Two against one.”
“Ah, that doesn’t count. You’re girls. Boys like to see hangings.”
“Not civilized boys, Philippe, of which you are one.”
Lowering his chin, he slogged beside her, kicking sand as he went and slowly falling behind.
“Hurry along, children. I have dinner to make. You can help me, Philippe. Would you like that? I’ll let you build the fire in the stove.” Surely that would cheer the boy up.
When he didn’t answer, she turned around to see him speeding down the sandy street heading straight for the scaffold.
“Oh, bon sang!” Growling, Caroline spun around and darted after him, dragging poor Abilene behind. But her son was quick. He got his speed from his father, along with his mulish disposition! The boy disappeared into the burgeoning crowd as the sheriff began listing the man’s crimes.
“I, Samuel Portland, magistrate of Santa Barbara, do hereby charge you, Dante Vega, with the following crimes: thievery, drunkenness, licentiousness…”
Halting at the edge of the crowd, Caroline peered through the swaying bodies for a sign of her Philippe.
“Forgery, cheating at cards…”
Caroline pressed through the mob.
“Making a lewd suggestion to a lady,” the man continued, causing some ladies to gasp. “And piracy.”
“Hang him! Hang him!” someone shouted.
“Cuelgalo a el!” others repeated in Spanish, stirring the crowd into a frenzy. Even a few of the ladies joined in.
“What does ‘hang’ mean?” Abilene asked.
“Nothing.” Caroline drew her daughter close, glad the little girl was too short to see what was happening.
Caroline, however, had a full view of the man who had committed all those horrid crimes as a masked executioner escorted him up the steps of the scaffold to a waiting noose. Dark hair jostled over the collar of his open brown shirt. A red velvet sash was tied about his waist, while baggy black trousers fed into thick boots that clacked up each wooden tread of his death march. He glanced toward the crowd. Her heart froze. She’d never forget a face like his. Nor his imposing figure. The only thing that was missing was the sword and pistols he had kept stuffed in a thick leather belt—now conspicuously absent from his chest. Yes, she’d know him anywhere. Particularly when his eyes now reached through the crowd and locked upon hers. Coffee-colored eyes, if she remembered. Eyes that—against her best efforts—had once made her insides melt.
Eyes that had assessed her with impunity above a devious grin, while he and his crew had plundered the ship that had brought her and her husband, François, to Santa Barbara.
“What have you to say regarding these crimes?” the magistrate asked h
im.
The villain pulled his gaze from her and faced the portly man. “I am innocent, of course!” His baritone voice bore a slight Spanish accent, while a boyish grin elicited chuckles from the crowd. “On what evidence do you charge me, señor?”
One man pointed toward the ship in the bay. “On the evidence of your ship, you vile pirate!”
“My ship? It has done nothing wrong. As for myself, I was coming ashore to purchase supplies.”
The eloquence of his speech surprised Caroline. Certainly not what she expected from a pirate.
“Purchase? You mean steal!” another man yelled.
“And then murder us all in our beds,” someone added.
The pirate snapped hair from his face. “I had no such intentions, I assure you.”
One of the wealthy ranchers stepped forward, adjusted his embroidered vest, and nodded toward the pirate. “This bandito robbed me of my money and my wife of her jewels when we sailed from San Diego to Santa Barbara three years ago.” He glanced over the crowd and huffed. “And he even propositioned my poor wife. She has never quite recovered from his lewd suggestions.”
The pirate shrugged with a grin.
“I was there as well,” another man shouted. “I can vouch for what Señor Lucero says. This man boarded our ship and looted all the passengers.”
Caroline could very well add her testimony to the others, for she had been on that same ship. But her experience had been quite different. This pirate—this Dante Vega—had done her and her husband no harm. In fact, quite the opposite. He had hidden them away in their stateroom and forbidden his men entrance. Not only that, but he had not taken their money or any of their possessions. Nor had he frightened the children. In fact, he seemed quite intent on keeping the little ones safe. Caroline could make no sense of it, though at the time she had thanked God for giving them favor in the cullion’s sight.
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