Mail-Order Holiday Brides: Home for Christmas / Snowflakes for Dry Creek

“You’ll make me very happy indeed.” He looked her up and down. Something glittered in his gaze, something she didn’t understand, but it was gone before she could analyze it.

Perhaps it was simply the reflection of the lamplight in his eyes, she decided. He stood, perfectly valiant, swept off his hat and self-consciously ran his fingers through his dark blond hair. She felt self-conscious, too, worrying he would be disappointed in her, perhaps wishing she was prettier and trying to ignore the niggle of what felt like doubt in the pit of her stomach.

That’s not a sign, she told herself. Anyone would feel trepidation meeting the stranger she’d agreed to marry. She’d prayed hard on this. Hadn’t she felt peace in her soul after discussing this with God? And it wasn’t as if she had a better choice. She’d answered twenty advertisements men had placed looking for wives in the Hearts and Hands magazine. Tom had been the one to answer her with a proposal and a train ticket. To a homeless woman, he’d been an answered prayer.

That’s what he still was. The answer to her prayers. She watched as he spoke respectfully with the middle-aged woman behind the front desk. He unbuttoned his coat, showing a wedge of flannel shirt and red suspenders. Her husband-to-be was apparently a farmer, which would make her a farmer’s wife. She knew nothing about farming, but she vowed to work hard. She would do her best cooking for him and keeping house. She’d learn about chickens and pigs or whatever she needed to because this man was going to be her everything. This man had promised to give her a home, his home, for Christmas.

“Mildred will get you settled.” Tom thrust out the battered satchel. “I’ll come by tomorrow right after lunch. Say, one o’clock?”

“I’ll be ready.” Christina took her satchel and tried to ignore the hollow feeling settling into the pit of her stomach. “I’m looking forward to it. I can’t wait to see your farm.”

“Can’t wait to show it to you.” Tom gave a bashful smile. “Good evening, Christina.”

Her throat closed up watching him go. He donned his hat, straightened his bulky fur coat and pushed through the door with a powerful snap. An icy wind blew snow around him and he disappeared into the night and storm.

“C’mon, dearie.” Mildred shuffled from behind the desk, heading toward the stairs. “I got your room a-warmin’. It’s gonna be a cold one tonight.”

“That’s kind of you.” What was she doing feeling lonely? Perhaps disappointed? Tom likely had chores to do on his farm instead of spending time getting to know her over supper, which she hadn’t realized until now that she’d been hoping he would.

There is plenty of time for that, a lifetime, she told herself as she followed Mildred not up the staircase but down a set of narrow steps into the basement. In a few days she would be fixing supper in their home. There would be endless evenings ahead to ask questions about his childhood or to tell him of hers. It will work out, she thought optimistically. It had to.

“Here ya go.” Mildred opened a door. “Coffee and tea are complimentary, self-serve if you’re interested. Let me know if you’ll be taking supper as Mr. Rutger didn’t pay for your meals, only your room. It’s fifty cents, a real bargain.”

Fifty cents? Christina bowed her head to hide her disappointment. She thought of her lost reticule, ignored her growling stomach and tightened her grip on her satchel. “Not tonight, thank you.”

“All righty.” Mildred gave a motherly smile. “The coal hod is stocked. Come find me if you need anything, dearie.”

“I will.” Christina waited until the older woman left before squeezing through the narrow door. The small room was cozy with a comfortable bed, a darling bureau and two armchairs, a peephole window and coal heater in the corner. Better than she’d had in years. She tucked her satchel next to the bureau, sat on the foot of the bed and rested her aching arm.

I’m not disappointed, she thought stubbornly, willing it to be so.

* * *

“Doc, do you know much about a man named Tom Rutger?” Elijah held out the basin of warm wash water he’d poured and carried from the woodstove.

“Tom? Sure I know him. I know just about everyone in this county.” Sam Frost took the basin, dunked a washcloth into the sudsy water and returned to his little patient’s side. “Why are you asking? Is it official business?”

“No, just curious is all.” He glanced toward the dark window, remembering the brief outline of the man who Christina was going to marry. “I didn’t like the look of him.”

“He and his brother took over the family pig farm when their folks retired, oh, seven or eight years ago. The brother married and moved onto his wife’s place last summer.” Doc Frost swiped at the mud obscuring the injured boy’s face.

No worried mother had knocked at the door looking for her child. No father had frantically searched the streets for a son that had wandered off. Elijah stared beyond his reflection in the window and studied the dark boardwalk. No one would be coming for the boy. He felt it in his guts. Returning his thoughts to the subject of Tom Rutger, he said, “I think I know which farm you mean. Just east of town?”

“That’s the one.”

Elijah leaned his forehead against the cool glass, picturing the run-down barn, the pig shelters made of scrap lumber, the shanty that had never seen a coat of paint. Tom Rutger might be the far side of prosperous, but that hadn’t answered the question. “Is he a good man?”

“I don’t like to talk ill of others. Let that be enough said.” Sam let out a sigh.

“That’s what I was afraid of.” He couldn’t stop wondering about Christina. Where was she now? Maybe dining with her bridegroom? They’d walked down the boardwalk away from both the hotel and other eating establishments in town, save for the boardinghouse.

He wished he could get the black feeling out of his stomach. With a sigh, he searched the stormy street. He did spot someone else he knew on the boardwalk. Sheriff Clint Kramer lifted a hand in acknowledgment and moseyed over.

“There’s the sheriff. Maybe he has some news on the boy.” Elijah headed for the door.

“Good. I’ll get him cleaned up.” Sam rinsed out the cloth. “Maybe while you’re gone, I can get him to talk.”

“That would be an improvement.” Elijah donned his hat, burst onto the boardwalk and his boots took him straight to the sheriff.

“No one is looking for the boy. As far as I can tell, no one knows who he is,” Clint said, jabbing his hands into his coat pockets. “Angel Falls is a small enough town—someone ought to know him.”

“So where does that leave us?” He couldn’t abandon the boy. Hard to forget how the kid had sobbed, face pressed against Elijah’s chest. “Maybe the doc can keep him at the clinic overnight?”

“That’d be best. I’ll leave a note on the office door, in case his parents decide to come looking for him.” Clint tipped his hat, taking a step back. “Talk to you later, Elijah.”

“Later.” Snow bit his cheeks and swirled in a furious dance down the dark, empty street. His thoughts should have stayed on the kid, but his gaze wandered to where lit windows in the boardinghouse glowed faintly through the storm.

Christina’s angelic face filled his mind. Remembering her light chestnut locks and her willowy grace, the light she brought to his battered heart returned.

She’s not yours, he reminded himself. If only that could keep his soul from wishing.

He stomped the snow from his boots and yanked open the clinic door. “Doc? Want me to grab some supper?”

“That’s a fine idea.” The doctor toweled off the boy’s face with a practiced hand. “Since I’ve got a patient for the night, we’d best feed him. I’ll send word to my nurse. She’ll be the one staying with him, once I get settled.”

“Sounds good.” Elijah leaned against the door frame, studying the boy who lay as stiff as a board, staring hollowly at the wall. “Too bad the kid isn’t talking. Yep, it’s a shame. I won’t be able to know what he wants for supper. Should I get him liver and onions? Boiled pig’s feet soup? Or a tripe sandwich, maybe?”

“Order him the soup.” Sam winked. “There’s nothing more appetizing than seeing a swine hoof in your soup bowl.”

“True enough.” Elijah winked back, but the boy didn’t stir. Hard not to notice the ragged clothes, or a string holding the leather toe to the sole of one shoe. A suspicion about the child lodged between Elijah’s ribs, making it hard to breathe as he pushed away from the door. “I’ll be back, Doc, with that soup and maybe a tripe sandwich or two.”

“We’ll be waiting,” Sam assured him, fetching clean long johns out of a nearby drawer, which looked as if they might fit the boy.

The kid was too little to be on his own, Elijah thought to himself as he left the warmth and light for the dark and storm. Icy wind needled through his clothes as he faced into the wind. He met no one as he hurried down the snowy boardwalk, past businesses closed for the night and into the light shining from the boardinghouse.

He walked past a long row of windows, blazing brightly. A potbellied stove glowed red-hot in the room where a dozen tables lined the walls, filled with diners. Mildred spotted him through the window and waved, signaling him to hurry on in.

“There you are.” Her smile put pink into her appled cheeks. “I wondered where you got to. It’s roast beef tonight, your favorite. I talked the cook into making those mashed potatoes you like.”

“Mildred, you are a treasure, but I’m sort of still on duty.” He thought of the homeless boy, rigid with fear. He knew what that was like. Long-ago memories threatened to whisper to the surface but he clamped them down in time. “Could you wrap up—”

That’s as far as he got. Words failed him when Christina Eberlee waltzed from a shadowed stairwell and into sight. Her lustrous brown hair held highlights of nutmeg that gleamed like the finest silk in the candlelight and framed her ivory face to perfection. “You.” Surprise crinkled her soft forehead. “What do I have to do to get rid of you, Marshal?”

“Don’t know, ma’am. Perhaps take a flyswatter to me?”

“I’ll keep it in mind for next time.” Humor crooked her lush mouth upward. Her blue skirts swished around her ankles as she came to a stop in front of the tea service, halfway across the lobby. Without the bulk of the coat he’d always seen her in before, she looked even tinier. Slender, petite, as delicate as china.

He towered over her like Goliath. “I thought you were staying at the hotel.”