Holly: The Christmas Bride (The Brides of Paradise Ranch (Sweet Version) Book 9)

by Merry Farmer

  Chapter 14

  George awoke with a start as the train jolted to a stop, brakes squealing. He shook himself to full attention as fast as he could, mentally scolding himself for nodding off in the first place. But the afternoon was grey and dreary, the train car where they sat—close to the stove at the back—was warm, and Holly felt so good snuggled against his side that he couldn’t resist the siren song of sleep. But there was no time for that now.

  Holly awoke when he did. “Are we there?” she asked, groggy, but twisting to look out the window as he did.

  The station where they’d stopped was no tiny wilderness waystation. Instead of open landscape and mountains, they were met with the sight of tall buildings, a colonnaded station with multiple tracks, and swarms of people rushing this way and that. Night had fallen, and the light of dozens of gas lamps lent an artificial glow to the scene. Considering their mission, that only made George feel as though he was living an adventure worthy of one of Athos’s dime novels.

  “Do you see Robbins?” he asked Holly as most of the passengers in their car got up and gathered their baggage from the overhead racks and seats.

  She shook her head, craning her neck and pressing a hand against the window. “What if he got off at a station while we were asleep?”

  It was a distinct possibility. One George didn’t want to think about. He couldn’t let Robbins get away. He owed it to his congregation to pursue the swindler until he was caught. And he owed it to Holly. He couldn’t let her down again, not after letting her down in so many ways over so many years.

  “Salt Lake City,” the porter called from the other end of the car. “This is the end of the line, folks. Gather your belongings and exit to the right.”

  “The end of the line,” Holly repeated in a whisper. She dragged her gaze away from the window, turning to face George. “If he didn’t get off at another station, he’ll have to get off here.”

  “And so will we,” George agreed.

  He scooted to the aisle and stood, offering his hand to help Holly up. Her pale face was flushed with an exhausted sort of excitement. It made her hazel eyes luminous, but George wasn’t sure he liked it otherwise. Holly deserved a more peaceful life than this. She deserved a husband who could take care of her and fill her days with happiness, not high-stakes pursuits of thieves. The guilt that he hadn’t been able to shake since she stepped down from the train in Haskell flared in his gut.

  “I’m sorry,” he said as he stepped down onto the Salt Lake City platform, then turned to give her a hand.

  “Sorry?” She blinked in surprise as her feet hit the platform. “For what?”

  He let out a breath, leading her a few yards away from the disembarking passengers. “I’m sorry for dragging you through all this.”

  Her reaction wasn’t what he expected. She stared at him incredulously. “There’s nothing here to be sorry for. We’re on a mission. I’m…I’m happy to be by your side in this.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” He rubbed the back of his neck, feeling as though something was about to burst inside of him. “You deserve more than this. You deserve a joyful life, not tension and turmoil. You deserve so much better than me.”

  “George.” Her expression melted to something so tender it nearly broke his heart. “I—”

  A moment later, she gasped and leapt into his arms, tugging his head down slightly. Instinctually, he closed his arms around her. His heart leapt to his throat when she whispered, “I see him.”

  “Where?” He tried to pull back from their embrace.

  “No, don’t,” she cautioned him in a hiss. “He’s looking this way.”

  Senses bristling, George did his best not to poke his head up and give them away while still searching around them. The moment he saw Robbins walk past them—only a few yards to his right—he turned his head enough to hide his face. If Robbins did see him, he would think they were just another couple greeting each other on the platform.

  As soon as it was safe, he loosened his hold on Holly and straightened. Robbins was moving swiftly away from them. He turned his head from side to side as if looking for something, but he didn’t turn back.

  “He’s heading for the ticket window,” George said.

  Holly turned to look, taking his hand as she did. “What do we do?”

  “We go after him.”

  They swayed into motion, following Robbins as closely as they could without putting themselves in danger of being seen. George thanked God that the station was noisy and crowded, even after dark. There were enough people milling around that he and Holly were able to duck behind a group of chattering old women when Robbins glanced behind him. He didn’t see them and continued on to the window, getting in line.

  “He must be planning to go on somewhere else,” George said.

  “Then we have to find out where.” Holly squeezed his hand and started off again.

  It was harder to keep out of sight once Robbins joined the line for tickets. Standing there waiting, he twisted and turned, restlessly checking his surroundings. George and Holly were lucky to find a thick pillar where they could stand, if not entirely concealed, then at least with their faces blocked from Robbins’s view. George continued to check on Robbins as he inched forward in line, and as soon as he reached the window and purchased a ticket, George nudged Holly to move.

  They waited until Robbins walked on, then joined the line he’d been in. It was their luck that the line wasn’t terribly long, and within minutes, they were at the window.

  “Destination?” the ticket seller asked.

  “I was hoping you could help me with that,” George replied. When the young man eyed him suspiciously, George went on with, “That man. The one who was five customers in front of us. Tall, bearded, wearing a black coat?”

  “Yes?” The ticket seller’s eyes narrowed even further.

  “He’s one of my parishioners,” George went on. “I…” Suddenly he was at a loss. The ticket seller looked slightly more sympathetic now that he knew George was a reverend, but his expression was still closed.

  “We’ve been trying to catch up with him since Haskell,” Holly burst in. She put on her prettiest smile. “You see, he’s been searching for his long-lost sister for years now. He received a telegram and left abruptly to go after her. But as soon as he left, we received word that his sister has been found, alive and well, and is on her way home. We’ve been trying to catch up with him to give him the good news since, but he keeps giving us the slip.”

  “Yes.” George picked up her story, hoping he didn’t sound too overeager, and asking God’s forgiveness for the little, necessary lie. “Could you tell us where he’s headed?”

  The ticket seller looked the two of them over long and hard. The longer it took for him to reply, the less hopeful George was that they would get a positive answer out of him.

  “Move it along,” the gentleman standing in line behind them groused.

  At last, the ticket seller sighed and said, “He bought a one-way ticket to San Francisco on the seven-forty-five.”

  “Thank you,” Holly sighed in relief, continuing to smile winningly at the man.

  “We’ll take two tickets for that same train,” George said.

  The ticket seller narrowed his eyes. “You’ve got half an hour until it leaves. Don’t you think that’s enough time to catch up to him and tell him the good news?”

  George prayed that his face didn’t flush too much.

  “It would be,” Holly jumped in once again, “but I’m afraid I need to use the lavatory as soon as possible.” She looked beautifully embarrassed by her admission. “We might be cutting it close.”

  “Better safe than sorry,” George added apologetically.

  The ticket seller still didn’t look convinced. “That train is almost full. The only tickets I have left are for private sleeping compartments. They’re fifty dollars apiece.”

  “Fifty dollars?” Holly gasped.

  It was an outrage
ous price for a train ticket, but there was nothing they could do. “We’ll take one sleeping compartment.” George reached into his jacket and took out Athos’s wad of bills. He counted out fifty, then added another five for good measure.

  The ticket seller suddenly smiled. “Right away, sir.” He took the money and put it into his till, pocketing one five-dollar bill. After that, he was quick to fill out their ticket for the sleeping compartment on the San Francisco train.

  As soon as he slid it through the ticket window, George and Holly took off. The Salt Lake City station was large, but it was well-organized. They were able to find the correct platform with time to spare. The closer they came to it, however, the more cautiously they proceeded. But Robbins wasn’t anywhere on the platform.

  “He must have already boarded,” Holly said as they stood a slight distance away from the train.

  “We should too, then,” George said. “But we have to be careful in case he’s looking out a window.”

  She nodded in agreement, and the two of them made their way quickly across the platform to the nearest porter. He took a look at their ticket, then directed them to the correct car. George helped Holly aboard, then followed her down the narrow aisle of the sleeping car. He’d never been on a train car so fancy in his life. They hadn’t made them like that when he was a wealthy young man traveling west. Each sleeping compartment was comprised of two seats facing each other that folded down into a bed, and each could be closed off with a sliding door.

  They found their compartment and slipped into the seats. George quickly shut the door behind them.

  “What do we do now?” Holly asked.

  George shrugged. “Now we wait.”

  As soon as the train was a few miles outside of Salt Lake City, winding through the massive, snowy mountains, Holly began to grow drowsy again. The ambient light of the city quickly faded, leaving them in darkness illuminated only by the glow of the moon off of the snowy fields around them. That, combined with the isolated nature of the sleeping compartment, gave her the eerie feeling of being more alone than she’d ever been. She snuggled closer to George and rested her head on his shoulder to combat the feeling.

  “It must be getting late,” George said, sliding his arm around her and rubbing her shoulders. “I didn’t bring a watch.”

  “It feels like time has stopped altogether,” she sighed, closing her eyes.

  George waited for a few moments before saying, “Maybe we should pull the bed down and try to get some sleep. It will be ages before we get to San Francisco.”

  Holly nodded and lifted her head. Together, the two of them managed to figure out how to pull down the facing seats to make a bed. It was a complex operation, and one for which they didn’t have much room to move. The act of twisting and reaching, gaining a foothold anywhere they could, and trying not to knock each other over as they wrenched, tugged, and pushed the cushions into a mattress, and then spread the sheets and blanket over them, not only woke Holly up a bit, it had her and George giggling.

  “I think the sheets are supposed to tuck in at this end,” Holly said, stretching around George to tuck where she could. In the process, she flattened George against the flimsy door leading to the aisle.

  “You know, this might have been a lot easier if we’d opened the door and given us some of the aisle space to move around in,” he said.

  Holly laughed. “Where’s the fun in that?”

  She tried to push herself back to standing once the sheets were tucked in, but George chose that moment to reach for the pillows from the compartment above her head. He bumped into her, which sent her sprawling across the makeshift bed in a fit of giggles.

  “You might as well just stay down there,” he chuckled, tossing the pillows at her playfully.

  “It does seem safer.”

  She rolled to the window side of the bed and drew her knees up so that she could unlace and remove her boots. The idea of sleeping fully clothed didn’t seem entirely comfortable, but the prospect of taking off her clothes when there were so many people just on the other side of the compartment’s flimsy walls wasn’t something she relished either. Then again, their compartment door was locked, and the relentless chugging and rolling of the wheels under the car drown out almost every other sound.

  George climbed onto the bed and took his shoes off as well, along with his jacket. “Not exactly what you imagined yourself doing the night before Christmas Eve, eh?”

  She laughed and rolled her eyes. “It’s not what I imagined myself doing ever.”

  His playful grin sank to a sad frown as he scooted to lean his back against the compartment wall. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

  Holly’s heart felt as though it had caught in a bramble bush in her chest. All of the emotion she’d felt as they disembarked from the Haskell train came rushing back to her. “George, you have nothing to be sorry about.” She climbed around to sit against the wall facing him.

  He shook his head, glancing out the window over her shoulder. “I have everything to be sorry about. If not for me, you’d be living a happy life somewhere in Baltimore. Maybe you’d’ve married an industrious shopkeeper and would have your own business now. Not to mention a family.”

  “And maybe I’d still have ended up stuck with Bruce, but never having known the joy of you.”

  He pulled his gaze away from the window and met her eyes.

  She went on before he could say anything else with, “You might have married some spoiled society lady and ended up stuck in a sour marriage, stuck in your parents’ world. You would never have come west or found your calling and devotion to the Lord’s work.”

  The turmoil in his expression only deepened. “I’m not sure I deserve the things I have after what I’ve put you through. Some servant of the Lord I am.”

  “But don’t you believe that God is good and all-loving?” she pressed him. “Haven’t you always said that the doors of the church should be open to sinners as much as anyone else, and that kindness and goodness is what leads us all to His home?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “No buts about it,” she went on. “God’s loving acceptance applies to you as well.”

  “Maybe.” He sighed. “I can understand how God can accept me with all my faults, but I don’t know how you can.”

  “Because I—”

  She stopped, her mouth hanging open as she studied his handsome, weary, regret-filled face. In a flash, everything made sense. Every last struggle and hardship, every difficulty and wall between the two of them was instantly as clear as day. The problem wasn’t something between the two of them. It wasn’t a wall or an ocean or even ten years’ worth of regret over the wrongs they had each done to each other. She’d forgiven him a thousand times over in the last three weeks, and if she was to take him at his word, he had forgiven her as well.

  But he hadn’t forgiven himself.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked, his frown filling with concern.

  “Oh, George.” She breathed out the words from the bottom of her heart. “This has to stop.”

  For a moment, he looked downright anxious. “What does?”

  “This.” She pushed away from the wall, surging toward him. She knelt with her shins on either side of his knees, resting her hands on his chest. His heart thumped furiously under her touch. “You know that you have my full and complete forgiveness for anything and everything that’s happened to me and between the two of us, right?”

  He hesitated, lips twitching. He covered her hands with his own. “I know. I don’t deserve it, but I know you forgive me.”

  “And I forgave you long ago,” she said, then rushed on with, “But you haven’t forgiven yourself.”

  His face pinched as fast as if she had slapped him. His brow pulled together in torment. “How can I?” he whispered, “when I caused so much pain to the one woman I’ve ever truly loved.” He moved a hand to caress her face.

  She pressed her cheek into his palm and closed her eyes for a
moment. When she opened them, she met his gaze with stalwart determination and a newfound sense of freedom. “George, in these last few weeks, you have helped me to see that my past failures are exactly that, in the past. I will always regret leaving you the way I did, but God has given me an entire lifetime to make up for that mistake. I am at peace with what I did, but I need you to be at peace as well.”

  He sighed and leaned his head back against the wall, blinking up at the ceiling. “But I did so many things that are so much worse than you could ever do, Holly. And worst of all, I caused you to fall into a terrible situation.”

  “I married Bruce of my own free will, to please my parents, not because of anything you did or didn’t do. And I survived,” she assured him, closing both of her hands around the side of his face this time. “I survived, and by some miracle, God led me back to you. Surely that has to mean that He wants us to be together.”

  He pulled his gaze down from the ceiling to meet her eyes.

  “I don’t think anyone, God or mankind, wants you to hold onto whatever guilt you’ve been clutching so tightly for all these years,” she went on. “And from every little thing I’ve seen since setting foot in Haskell, you have turned your life around and made amends for anything and everything in so very many ways. Not a soul in your congregation doubts that you are a good and worthy man. And might I remind you, they all know about your past and still feel that way.”

  He looked at her, staring so hard that she felt as though she could see right into his heart. There was so much pain in him, but it was the kind of pain that was bubbling to the surface, on its way to being let go.

  “It’s just so hard,” he said, barely above a whisper. “I can forgive just about anyone else for every kind of sin, but it’s so hard to forgive myself for hurting you.”

  “I’m not hurt now,” she assured him. “George, I’m so far from hurt now that I’m stunned. I’m here, with you, married to you.” She smiled in spite of herself. “We’re off on a grand adventure, doing something good and exciting. We have a beautiful life ahead of us. The past is gone. Let it be gone.”