Last Chance Bride

Anger thudded in his chest and he almost turned away. But he’d promised Emma. The remembered hope in her blue eyes kept him from running out of the hotel. He lifted his fist and knocked.

“Who is it?” asked a quiet voice through the wood door. Elizabeth’s voice.

“It’s Jacob.”

The door swung open to reveal her thin, pale face. Kind blue eyes met his and he felt the impact straight to his gut. He caught a whiff of rose water, sweet and light, saw the careful coronet of tightly plaited braids crowning her head, heard the gasp of her breath telling him he’d surprised her.

Hell, he surprised himself.

“Can I come in? I want to talk with you.”

“Yes.” Slim, graceful fingers gripped the edge of the door, pulling it open, allowing him room.

He wanted to hate her for her duplicity. It would be easier if he could. Jacob slipped past her and stood in the middle of the room, the bed between them.

Elizabeth carefully pushed the door to, but not shut. Silence settled between them. He fingered the hat he gripped in both hands.

“Jacob,” she began. She looked breakable. “I’m sorry about this. I need you to believe that.”

Sincerity burned in her eyes. He looked away. “I gave you a surprise, too. I’m sorry about that. I should have told you, I should have prepared you. You came all this way with expectations about a marriage and a family I can’t meet.”

She blinked, embarrassment pinkening her pleasant face. “I’m the one who is wrong.”

He couldn’t answer her. It took all his will to hold back the burning edge of rage—rage at her for being less than he had hoped, less than the mother Emma needed.

“I received over fifty letters.” Hell, he shouldn’t have told her that.

Surprise flickered in her eyes. “Fifty women wrote you?”

“Emma and I read through every letter.”

“I never imagined so many women would write you.”

“Neither did I.” His breath caught. “Yours was the one she liked the most. So I wrote you.”

She smiled, a softness crept across her plain oval face, changing her from pretty to beautiful.

“I can’t tell you what your letters meant to me,” she said. “I was so alone, and suddenly I had someone to talk to, even if it was in writing.”

His throat constricted. “Your letters meant a lot to Emma, too.”

“I’m so glad.”

Their gazes met. He saw sadness large enough to touch him.

“Yours was the only advertisement I have ever answered,” she confessed. “Or that I ever wanted to.”

She seemed so innocent, a touch shy. Beneath it all, she had to be a good woman. Jacob’s anger and disappointment tangled inside his chest, twisting painfully. He wanted to vent the rending confusion of his emotions. Hell if he knew what to say, and how to say it without hurting her. He’d never felt so helpless in his life.

Maybe he should call this whole thing off. He could walk out the door and never look back.

But he didn’t want to start looking for another woman. Elizabeth met every one of his requirements. She was kind, honest and gentle. And Emma wanted her. It was too late to go back, too soon to go forward.

She ambled away from him with a swishing of her simple skirts. She wore a blue calico, he noticed now, nothing fancy or pretty, just a serviceable dress. This was the woman he’d imagined during those long months of correspondence.

“I’ve brought a gift for Emma. May I give it to you? I want her to have it.”

Jacob said nothing.

Libby took that as an agreement as she crossed to the small bureau near the door. “I didn’t want to show up empty-handed. Now that things between us have changed...” Her throat closed. “I know I won’t be seeing her again, but this still belongs to her.”

“You shouldn’t have gone to any trouble.”

“Oh, it was no trouble, only pleasure.” She tugged out the drawer, risking a glance at him.

He stood with hat in hand, his black hair neatly combed. He wore a crisp red flannel shirt and dark trousers and his boots shone, despite the thin light in the room.

If only. Libby held back her heart as she extracted a wrapped bundle from the top bureau drawer and folded back the paper. She wanted Jacob’s friendship and his respect. How could she earn it now?

Her hands trembled as she laid the doll on the dresser.

“That is a lovely gift,” Jacob said, stepping forward to join her.

Libby glanced up into the mirror’s reflection. With his head bent, she could see the cowlick at the back of his scalp. He seemed vulnerable somehow, despite his obvious strength and height and breadth. He lifted one thick-knuckled hand and brushed a finger across the doll’s happy cloth face and brown yarn braids.

“You wrote me and said Emma had brown hair.”

“Yes, I did.” He towered above her with emotion shining in his eyes. “This is an expensive doll.”

“I purchased the fabric, but I made the doll,” Libby explained, pleased with her work. “I wanted something special to give Emma, something a mother might make for her daughter.”

Jacob’s throat worked, and he turned away.

She’d said the wrong thing. “I know I can’t expect anything from you, anything we agreed to months ago, but I made this doll for Emma, from my heart. It would mean everything to me if she could have it, no strings attached.”

“Why?”

Because losing dreams hurt. Libby carefully covered the doll with the brown paper. “I put my heart into making this for Emma. It belongs to her.”

His jaw firmed, and he looked away without speaking. He wouldn’t accept the gift. Libby stared hard at her hands. She was alone now. Without Jacob, without a home. Perhaps she’d been foolish to tell him the truth when she wasn’t even certain. But in her heart Libby knew, she could never hurt Jacob.

“I have dinner waiting for us at home,” he said quietly.

Did he mean...? Hope beat in her heart. Home. It had been a lifetime since that word meant anything to her. She had been a small girl. Libby remembered the little trundle bed tucked in the corner of the shanty where she slept at night, safe from the rain and the wind and the harshness of the world. Now she caressed the word over and over in her mind, as if home could mean that again.

“Do you mean—” she didn’t dare hope “—you haven’t changed your mind?”

“You have come only to meet us, nothing more.” Jacob turned toward the door. His boots rang on the floorboards. “You and I may decide not to marry for many reasons. I’m willing to see what happens.”