Mail-Order Christmas Brides Boxed Set (62 page)

“Wait! Wait! There’s one more thing.” Braids bob
bing, Gertie rushed up and held out both hands, one for her father and one for her mother.

For me,
Felicity thought. Bliss touched her like grace. She was grateful to God for this one perfect moment when the candles seemed to burn more brightly as if to bless their union. That brightness surrounded them with an incandescent glow.

“Merry Christmas, my bride,” Tate whispered.

“Merry Christmas.” Wherever life took them, she knew their love would see them through. Nothing was stronger than the abiding affection binding them, soul to soul.

“Dearly beloved,” the reverend began, making them husband and wife, making them a family. Forever.

Dear Reader,

Welcome back to Angel Falls. When Janet Tronstad and I teamed up with the idea to write an anthology together, I had no idea how much fun it would be, or the places in the heart where this novella would take me.
Her Christmas Family
is about loss and love, about love’s power to heal even the most broken hearts. It’s a story about a little girl wanting a mother for Christmas and getting a family. I’ve had this story in my heart for years, and I’m grateful for the chance to finally write it. I hope you enjoy this Christmas tale where God’s love shines bright.

Thank you for choosing
Her Christmas Family.

Wishing you peace, joy and love this holiday season,

Questions for Discussion

1. What was your first impression of Tate? How would you describe him? What do you like most about his character?
   
2. How would you describe Felicity and Tate’s first meeting? What did you learn about Felicity’s character? What did you learn about Tate’s?
   
3. Why is Felicity the right ma for Gertie?
   
4. What does Tate fear most?
   
5. What is the story’s predominant imagery? How does it contribute to the meaning of the story? Of the romance?
   
6. Do you see God at work in this story? Where and how, and what meaning do you find there?
   
7. How would you describe Tate’s faith? Does it change throughout the course of the book? How would you describe Felicity’s faith?
   
8. What do you think Tate and Felicity have each learned about love?
   

Christmas Stars for Dry Creek

Janet Tronstad

This book is dedicated to my new Twitter
and Facebook friends. Who knew it would be
so much fun? Look me up if you haven’t already.

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in
the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from
the east came to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he
who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw
his star when it rose and have come to worship him.
—
Matthew
2:1–2

Chapter One

Montana Territory, December 1884

W
inter sun filtered into the old cabin, bringing a faint light to Eleanor McBride as she sat by the empty fireplace and frowned. Her fingers were stiff from the cold, but that wasn’t the problem. She had been knitting a star with yarn she’d brought with her to this remote place and, no matter how much she twisted the yellow threads, it wasn’t going to hang properly on the pine tree she had dragged inside just yesterday. Other women might know how to make a star, but she didn’t. She finally laid her knitting needles down in her lap and acknowledged the bitter truth.

She was a failure at making Christmas.

Of course, she had done everything she could, she told herself as she looked around the poorly furnished dwelling. The man who had sent for her to be his wife would just have to be satisfied with that. After all, there was no holly to make a wreath for the rough
hewn door and no lime to whitewash the cracked walls to show respect for any travelers who might visit them here. However, she had managed the most important thing: she had saved her last candle so they’d have a light to place in the window on the holy night.

She always felt as if God counted his children by looking at those candles.

She wondered briefly if the man, Sergeant Adam Martin, cared about candles or stars or even the Holy Child himself. She had not met him yet and knew so little about him, only what he’d written in that one rather awkward letter. He’d said then that he wanted her to get his house ready for Christmas, but it was more because of his seven-year-old daughter, Hannah, than himself.

A calico kitten meowed at Eleanor’s feet and she bent to pick it up. Its soft fur was the same copper color as her wild Irish hair. The promise of the daughter had been what made her leave a quiet life on the Stout estate and come west to marry a stranger who lived in this house near Dry Creek.

A glance up at the only window in the room showed her that the sky had been growing steadily darker as she sat there until now its gray expanse put her in mind of the sheep storms they used to have back home in Nantucket. The fog was so thick and heavy during those times that it drenched the thick coats of the animals. She sorely missed the island. Even the air here seemed different; it was more brittle somehow, and this morning she had felt the pinch of it in her breath as she walked down to the creek.

She hoped she’d be happy in this place. She was thirty-five years old and this might be her last chance to be a mother and have a family. After her father died several months ago, she had been keenly aware in her grief that she had no one left who belonged to her. She had never given much thought to getting married when he’d been alive.

Not that she’d had many chances to wed. Even when she’d been younger, men had been reluctant to court her. Her red hair was not fashionable enough for most people. She refused to wear a corset or hide her face from the sun even though she freckled. Those men who weren’t put off by that seemed to back down when they saw how direct her green eyes were. They said she saw too much, and it made them nervous.

Of course, the sergeant had never seen her eyes.

“I’m beginning to think something is wrong, though,” she murmured as she stroked the cat’s soft fur. “That man should be here by now.”

According to the letter, the sergeant’s daughter had been staying with his mother in Ohio and was supposed to be coming home this Christmas to finally live with him. But Eleanor had been waiting for twelve days and no one, not the sergeant nor his child, had stepped through the cabin’s door. The neighbors who had met her at the train station said he was out on one last patrol with his troops before his replacement got here. But she was no longer convinced that explained his absence.

“Maybe he changed his mind about marrying a
woman he doesn’t know,” she said to the kitten in her lap as it closed its eyes and began to purr.

She didn’t completely blame the sergeant. After all the time she had spent coming out here on the train, she still wasn’t sure about the arrangement herself. So much was unknown. His daughter might not be as wonderful as the man said in his letter. He hadn’t mentioned the land, but it was more flat and barren than she had imagined. Even when frozen, she could tell by the way the dry soil crumbled between her fingers that it wouldn’t be fertile enough to grow much besides scrub grass come spring.

Just then Eleanor heard the sound of a wagon outside. She set the kitten down on the floor before stepping over to the fireplace and picking up the poker. It was the only weapon she had unless she counted her knitting needles. Or the rifle in the back room. She forced herself to take a deep breath. She would get the gun if needed, but she had little experience with it.

The footsteps on the porch gave her pause. A neighbor would knock at the door, but she heard the sounds of a rattle. Someone was testing the latch. She kept the latch drawn when she was inside even though she had to leave the door unsecured when she left for any reason. Not that there was anything worth stealing inside the cabin. A crude table. A rope-tied bed in the back room with some furs and army blankets draped over it. A cast-iron cook stove that didn’t heat properly, and the stool she’d been sitting on. And, of course, her father’s old telescope that he’d given her before he died. It was carefully wrapped in a length of her best
black flannel and tucked in her valise, waiting for the next clear night.

The door rattled again, this time more impatiently. She would not give up the telescope without a fight. That, along with her mother’s old opera gloves, was all she had of her family. Maybe she should get the rifle, after all.

“Let me in,” a man’s voice demanded.

She relaxed some. If she’d ever heard a military voice, this was it. But she couldn’t be too careful. “Who is it?”

“Sergeant Adam Martin, ma’am.”

She could almost hear the click of his boots, but she still hesitated. Since she’d never met him, she had no idea what his voice should sound like.

“Could you say that again?” she asked to give herself more time to think. She wished she could ask him a question that would prove he was who he said. It was a little unnerving to realize she knew nothing about him that everyone else within miles of here didn’t already know. Except for one thing.

“What’s my name?” she demanded to know.

There was silence on the other side of the door for a moment, but he finally answered, “Eleanor Hamilton.”

“McBride,” she corrected him, wondering how he knew her mother’s maiden name. The Hamilton family surely didn’t claim her any more than they had her mother.

“Just let me in.” The man’s voice was impatient.

A woman’s voice rose in the distance then, too. “What’s wrong, dear?”

Eleanor’s heart sank. Maybe it wasn’t the gamble of it all that had stopped him. Maybe the sergeant had found someone else to marry. Someone younger. Prettier. More biddable. Although a man desperate enough to advertise for a wife should have already exhausted his circle of acquaintances before placing his advertisement, she thought in exasperation. She knew such a man was likely to have any number of problems, but she had never thought he might be slow-witted.

Eleanor stepped toward the door, and then stopped to place the fireplace poker against the wall before unlatching the door and opening it. She didn’t want him to know she’d been afraid.

“Oh.” She blinked.

It had been snowing and a light dusting of white covered the dark military coat he wore. He had a scowl on his face, but his black hair showed thick as he held his cap in his hands and his blue eyes were so handsome that she felt a little faint. He was not at all like she expected.

“You’re the man who wrote the letter?” she asked, and then cleared her throat to take the wispy quality away. This man should have had no trouble finding a spouse even in a place like this. If he had gone back East, the young women would have lined up to marry him.

She took another look at him and frowned. What had her late employer, Mrs. Stout, been thinking? The other woman had been the one to answer the ser
geant’s advertisement, not telling Eleanor about it until the man had sent his letter proposing marriage. Even at that, she had been prepared to accept a misfit. She was one herself, after all.

But a man like this and her? His coat might be a little rough from travel, but he looked every inch an Eastern gentleman with his shoulders squared and his hands in leather gloves that must have cost considerably more than any shoes she’d ever had on her feet.

The Stout estate had been a humble place and she wasn’t used to men like him. Frankly, she’d have preferred a husband who slouched. Or a working man like her father with clothes in need of mending and windblown hair that needed trimming. She’d be able to work at redeeming such a man. She didn’t have anything to offer the one who stood in front of her.

“Of course it’s me,” he snapped as if he thought she was the one who was dimwitted.

Strangely enough, that made her feel better. Maybe it was his bad temper that accounted for his trouble in finding a wife.

“Well, are you going to let us in or not?” he demanded.

Eleanor smiled and stepped aside. “Please, do come in.”

Yes, she thought to herself, his disposition was clearly the problem.

* * *

Sergeant Adam Martin was cold, hungry and in no condition to face the realization that he had promised to marry a lunatic. He’d taken his mother’s word that
Eleanor whatever-her-last-name-was would be, above all, a competent woman who could be trusted with the gentle sensitivities of an invalid child. Right now, he wasn’t so sure he could trust her to stable his horses. She was acting as if she hadn’t expected him to be here, and this was his house.

He stomped the snow off his boots and walked inside. He’d bought the place and all its contents in early fall from an old man who’d decided to move back to the mountains even if the trapping wasn’t what it used to be. The weather had been fine then, and the sergeant hadn’t realized how much work would be necessary for anyone to live here comfortably in a harsh winter. Even if he had, there had been no time to make any repairs while he was finishing his duties with the army.

Looking at the cabin now, though, he saw that it wasn’t much better than the shelter that had been added to the back side of the house for the sake of the animals. Something needed to be done and soon. The walls were made of unpeeled logs that had grown gray and drafty over the years. On the outside, prairie sod was piled around the bottom half of the building, but inside the cracks on the upper half were filled with little more than dried clay. Railroad spikes had been driven into the corners to keep the logs steady. The chimney, though not mortared, was all that seemed sturdy enough to survive the winter.