Reluctant Brides Collection

by Cathy Marie Hake

  “I suppose it’s Your plan that I become like Miss Grenadier,” she accused God in the privacy of her lavishly furnished bedroom one night. Half-expecting a rebuke, she bitterly added, “Deliver me from such a fate! Nothing could be worse.” At least she still had her beauty. The mirror above her brocade-skirted dressing table attested to that.

  “If only my life would change!” she complained.

  The very next day a new dancing master reported to Miss Grenadier’s Finishing School for Young Ladies. Single, sought-after by eligible young maidens and their overly eager mamas, Herbert Calloway was reputed to be disgustingly rich. When the black-haired, black-eyed young man met Meredith Rose, he bent low over her hand and clicked his heels together. “Mademoiselle Macrae? It is indeed my pleasure.”

  His admiration warmed her lonely heart and melted the reserve with which she usually greeted strangers. “Coincidences like this just don’t happen,” she told herself. “Herbert’s coming is surely an answer to my prayers.”

  A time of enchantment followed. Herbert overwhelmed her with admiration. A few months later the Boston newspapers formally announced nuptials for Miss Meredith Rose Macrae and Mr. Herbert Calloway would be held the end of March.

  When the long-awaited day came, Meredith Rose awakened to brilliant sunshine. Distant clouds warned that the capricious month was not yet over, but she only laughed at their gloomy rumblings.

  Somehow the hours passed until she reached the church and donned her wedding dress, chosen over the objections of the dressmaker who had trotted out samples of far more elaborate frocks. Gowned in white satin and dreams, she waited in the anteroom, visualizing the moment when Marcus placed her hand in Herbert’s and she took the vows that would bind them together forever. Then the note arrived….

  “Ready, Merry?”

  Her brother’s voice calling her back from her thoughts made her feel she had returned from a long journey, one so wearisome she dared not speculate about what “under the circumstances” meant. “Yes. Take me home.”

  Chapter 3

  Every clop clop of the matched pair of white horses that proudly pulled the closed carriage from First Central Church to the Macrae home accused Marcus. You should have told her. Why didn’t you tell her? He impatiently thrust the accusations aside. What was done was done. Self-recrimination couldn’t undo the past. He must focus on how to tell Merry what the ominous words under the circumstances meant—but not here. Not while she sat stiffly beside him in a wedding gown as crumpled as her former dreams.

  When they reached their spacious home, he silently helped Meredith Rose from the carriage and waved the driver away. She started up the walk, paused, and glanced at the scowling, gunmetal clouds that had changed from warning to reality. A bolt of lightning split the sky, followed by window-rattling thunder. Glad for the diversion, Marcus threw his arm around his sister and called above the tumult, “Quick! We need to reach the porch before the rain starts!”

  They made it with only seconds to spare. A silver torrent of rain that changed to hail descended. From the shelter of the wide porch, the twins watched the storm. After it passed on and a patch of apologetic blue sky appeared, Meredith Rose said in a shaken voice, “Look.” She pointed to a shimmering rainbow above them that arched across the city of Boston. They watched until it disappeared, then her blue gaze turned to Marcus. “As soon as we get out of these abominable clothes, you can tell me what else is going on. It would be nice to think the rainbow is a good omen, but I know you too well not to recognize Herbert’s desertion is only part of something bigger.” Before he could reply, she slipped inside and hurried up the stairs.

  With a prayer for wisdom, Marcus slowly went to his room and changed into comfortable clothes. “Abominable is right,” he muttered, flinging his wedding apparel onto his bed, then hastily retrieving it and hanging it up properly. Under the circumstances, he couldn’t indulge in recklessness of any sort, even discarding despised clothing. Under the circumstances. Strange. He had never hated the words until today. Now they stood for heartbreak and the rocky road ahead.

  The ring of the telephone shattered his reflections. A few moments later, there was a discreet knock at his bedroom door. “A call for you, sir,” a servant announced.

  “Thanks. I’ll take it here.” He picked up the phone on his bedside table. “Macrae. Arlington? You have some nerve, calling me at a time like this!” Marcus paused, trying to make sense of what the distraught man on the other end of the line was saying. “I see…Yes…A sorry mess indeed, and one you brought on yourself.” He paused again. “I understand. God help you, Arlington!”

  The line went dead. Marcus didn’t know whether to rage or rejoice. Romans 8:28, a favorite Scripture verse, came to mind: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

  Heart lighter than it had been for days, Marcus went back downstairs to the library.

  Meredith Rose was already there, clad in a simple white muslin gown scattered with tiny blue flowers and some frilly stuff around the neck and on the pockets. It made her look more like a little girl than a rejected bride-to-be. A blazing fire cast dancing shadows on the walls, and the soft lighting lay like an aura of peace over the room. Marcus dropped into his favorite chair, passionately wishing it could be like any other day when they gathered by the fire to share secrets, joys, and woes.

  “Marcus, do you know why Herbert did what he did?”

  He drew in a deep breath, held it, then slowly released it. This was no time for evasion. “Gwendolyn Arlington’s banker father betrayed client confidence. She evidently passed the news on to Calloway.”

  Meredith Rose’s white brow wrinkled. “What does that have to do with us? What on earth could Mr. Arlington say that would cause Herbert to elope with Gwendolyn?”

  Marcus gritted his teeth. The dismay and anger that had attacked him when Arlington first summoned him and broke the news that figuratively blew things to bits returned. “Money. There’s no easy way to tell you this, Merry. A few days ago, I learned our trusted family solicitor had been ill. Wanting to make sure our holdings would be well cared for, Mr. Simpson turned them over to his brother. He didn’t dream what kind of man he was putting in charge.” Marcus paused in an effort to control his feelings and continue with the story.

  Meredith Rose’s face turned to parchment. Shock filled her face. “You don’t have to say what happened. The brother absconded with our funds.”

  “Yes.” Marcus pounded his knee with one hand. “If I’d only known sooner I might have been able to salvage at least something—”

  She acted as though she didn’t hear him, but her eyes darkened to the color of the night sky. “So when Mr. Arlington found out, he told his daughter,” she said in a mocking voice. “And of course, Gwendolyn couldn’t resist telling Herbert.” She shook her head. “I still don’t understand why it should matter. Everyone knows Herbert Calloway is wealthy, far more than we are—were.”

  Marcus sprang to his feet, clenched his hands into fists, and delivered the final blow. “Everyone knows wrong. While I was upstairs changing, Arlington called. It seems Herbert Calloway is a charlatan. He duped Miss Grenadier and others into believing him to be a man of unlimited means and worked his way into Boston society in order to find a well-to-do wife!”

  Meredith Rose stared at him. For a moment, she didn’t move. When she did, she shocked her brother beyond belief. Instead of showing anger or pain, her lips twitched. Her eyes sparkled. Laughter exploded as if from a cannon and filled the quiet library.

  Marcus felt his jaw drop. Had she taken leave of her senses? “Are—are you all right?” he stammered when he could find voice enough to speak.

  “All right?” Another peal of laughter came, along with a rush of tears that obviously didn’t spring from sadness. “It’s the joke of the year. Don’t you see?” She took a dainty handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed at her eyes. “Gwendolyn Arl
ington, who shouted to the housetops that I was odd because I didn’t want bridesmaids at my wedding, is married to an unscrupulous man who hoodwinked her into an elopement.” She went off into more gales of laughter. “Talk about poetic justice; Gwendolyn has it.”

  Marcus joined her. “Arlington is beside himself,” he managed to get out between chuckles. “What’s hurting him the worst is that it’s his own fault. If he’d kept his mouth shut about business affairs, he wouldn’t have Herbert Calloway for a son-in-law.”

  “So that’s what Herbert meant by ‘under the circumstances.’ ” She sobered. “Just how bad is our financial situation, Marcus?”

  “It couldn’t be worse,” he succinctly told her, hating what he had to do, yet relieved by her reaction to Herbert’s conniving. “We’ve lost everything.”

  She looked around the library. “Even the house?” Her voice quavered.

  “Even the house.” Marcus squirmed and dropped his head into his hands. “Several months ago, a friend of father’s came to me. He had fallen on hard times and desperately needed a large sum of money in order to save his business. I placed a mortgage on the house so I could help him out. I hoped you’d never need to know.”

  Meredith Rose looked as if she’d been turned to stone. “Can’t he pay you back?”

  “No. Fire destroyed his business, and he had no insurance. We could have squeaked by if Simpson hadn’t stolen our funds. Now there is no way to pay the mortgage. I’m sorry, Merry. So sorry.”

  She slipped from her chair and knelt by him. One hand stroked his dark hair. “I would rather give up everything than not have you willing to help those in need,” she fiercely told him. “I can stand anything as long as we have each other and are together.”

  Hope flared within Marcus. “Do you really, truly mean that? Even though we’ve lost our home, our place in society?”

  He saw her swallow convulsively before she said in a flippant tone that didn’t conceal her sincerity, “Just call me Ruth. ‘Whither thou goest’ and all that.” She pressed her cheek against his hair. “I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth, if necessary,” she whispered. “I mean,” she hastily amended, “to the outskirts of Boston.” She wrinkled her nose. “I can’t say I’ll like it, but at least it’s better than being married to a scoundrel!”

  Marcus seized both of her hands in his. “Meredith Rose Macrae, you’re a brick, and I’m proud of you.” He fell silent, dreading the next few minutes. His twin had just survived two devastating blows. God help her be able to come to terms with the final jolt.

  “Do you remember the old saying about things, both good and bad, coming in threes?” Her hands tightened on his until he wondered why she didn’t cry out in pain. She raised her chin in the way she had done since childhood when faced with something new and strange.

  “Fire away,” she ordered. “So far today I’ve been jilted and informed we’re penniless and will be living in a—well—let’s call it a less-than-desirable neighborhood. Nothing could be worse.” Her eyes widened with fear, and she released his hands. “Unless you’re planning to elope, join the Foreign Legion, or you have some life-threatening illness, I should be able to handle it.”

  “None of those, thank God,” Marcus fervently said. “The thing is, we won’t be living out near Community Christian Church.”

  Meredith Rose jumped to her feet. Radiance erased every trace of worry from her lovely face. “You rascal! You saved the best for last. The rainbow was a good omen. I don’t have to guess what the third happening is. You’ve been called to a new church. How exciting! When do you start? How long have you known?” She blinked wet lashes. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Marcus’s heart thudded. When they were toddlers, he had popped a huge soap bubble his twin had blown with soapsuds and her little clay pipe. A bubble that shone iridescent and beautiful. Now he must do the same thing, only this time Merry was no crying child to be comforted by blowing a new and larger bubble.

  Marcus quietly said, “Sit down, please.” If his life had depended on it, he couldn’t have kept from sounding somber.

  Apprehension replaced the joy in her face, and she obediently resumed her seat in the chair opposite his.

  “For several months I’ve felt dissatisfied with where I am serving,” Marcus began. “It started when I read stories of how desperately both ministers and doctors are needed in faraway places.” He ignored his sister’s gasp. “The more I prayed about it, the more I realized God wanted me to go where I am truly needed, where there is no one to replace me should I not be there. I didn’t tell you because I felt once you were married, you could accept my leaving and the loss of our money far better.”

  “But I’m not getting married,” she protested. “Now you’re going to Africa or India or someplace like that. We promised to stay together, Marcus. How can you do this? What will I do? What kind of God would call you somewhere I can’t go?”

  “He hasn’t, old dear,” Marcus burst out. He leaped from his chair, pulled her to her feet, and executed a wild dance around the library. “God has called me somewhere you can go.” Exuberance for what lay ahead spilled like salt from a saltcellar. “It will be an adventure; one unlike any we’ve ever experienced. My call is to Idaho. A little mountain town called Last Chance.”

  “Last Chance?” She sounded appalled. With a cry of distress, she tore herself free from her brother’s arms and raced upstairs, where she flung herself down on her bed and raged, “God, are You some kind of monstrous joker?” The words you asked me to change your life flew into her mind, but she fiercely rejected them. No loving God would send anyone—especially her—to a place called Last Chance.

  Even though the name perfectly described Meredith Rose Macrae’s present situation.

  Chapter 4

  Last Chance, Idaho—The previous autumn

  Briton Farley slid from the saddle of his favorite stallion. He dropped the reins to the ground so the buckskin would stand, and then strode to the edge of the promontory that overlooked the mining town below. He had discovered the lonely spot years earlier and returned again and again, especially when he had a knotty problem to work out.

  Brit had seen the spectacular Bitterroot Range that separated Idaho from Montana on the east blanketed with winter snows, etched against fiery sunrises, tranquil beneath cloudless, sapphire skies. Tawny head bared in respect, Brit had quoted Psalm 19:1 countless times: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.”

  Today, troubles as abundant as the red, yellow, and golden leaves he trod distracted him from nature’s wordless appeal. Brit stared across at the mountain peaks and dolefully whistled “Lone Prairie,” then laughed when his horse nudged his shoulder.

  “Too bad you can’t talk, Nez Percé,” he told his horse. “You’d be reminding me there’s no problem worth stewing over on a day like this.” He yanked off his Stetson, unknotted his colorful kerchief, and mopped his face. Never in the eight years since he had first come to Idaho had he seen a more exquisite Indian summer. It stretched over the land like a blanket of peace.

  Brit hunkered down on his boot heels and breathed in the evergreen-scented air. Eight years. He sighed. It didn’t seem possible. Thoughts of the decisions shouting to be made faded. So did his present surroundings. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to drift back. Back to life on the Rocking F in Texas. To untroubled days with his father, whose tawny hair, amber eyes, and catlike grace had replicated themselves in Brit….

  Michael Farley had become everything in the world to his small son when Brit’s mother was stricken with fever and died. “It’s just you and me and God now, Brit,” he’d said.

  “I don’t like God. He took my mama,” Brit had burst out. If he lived to be older than the Bitterroots, he would remember his father’s reply and the pain in his voice.

  Strong arms wrapped around him. “We don’t always like what God does, but we need to remember this: God loved us so much He sent His Son to die
on a cross so all who believe in Him and invite Jesus to live in their hearts can live with Him. Your mama can’t come back to us, but someday we’ll go to her. She will be waiting for us in a place so beautiful the Bible says we can’t even imagine it!”

  The child turned it over in his mind. “What if she isn’t happy?” His lip quivered. “What if she forgets us?” He buried his face in his father’s shirt.

  “She won’t forget us,” Michael assured. His voice softened. “And Son, she could never be unhappy in the presence of God. The wonderful thing is, we can have that presence with us, too. All we have to do is ask for it.”

  Brit looked into his father’s face, not understanding. Yet the lines of sadness that had etched themselves so deeply when Christine Farley fell ill were miraculously smoothed out. His expression reminded Brit of how the world looked after the sun came up over the low hill to the east and filled the sky with glory. It brought comfort. As long as Daddy looked like that, everything would surely be all right.

  Years passed: busy, happy years. Father and son worked as harmoniously as blades on a fine pair of shears. They survived drought and losses and made the most of the good years. They doubled their landholdings and increased their herds. Just after Brit’s twenty-first birthday, his father signed the ranch over to him.

  “I may live to be a hundred.” Michael Farley’s weather-beaten face opened into a broad smile. The crinkles at the corners of his expressive eyes deepened. “It doesn’t matter. You’re ready to take full responsibility.” He leaned back in the comfortable, hand-hewn chair that had occupied the same spot in the rustic living room as far back as Brit could remember, then propped his feet on an ancient stool. “Speaking of taking responsibility, when are you going to get married and give me grandchildren? Christine and I were married with you on the way by the time I was your age.”

  Brit felt himself redden. “I’m too busy for girls,” he said gruffly.