Christmas Mail Order Angels: The complete 11 Volume Set

by Darlene Franklin

  Amanda buttered a roll. Back when she knew no better, she’d gone against Aunt Bessie Mae’s instruction to her young charge. She’d fallen in love with a handsome man. She’d let that man charm her into thinking he would marry her. In all of Merville, Maine, she’d become infatuated with the one man, from the one family, who’d also fled Atlanta during the war. Beau Pettigrew, the Southern Aristocrat, compromised her reputation. Never again. Now she was older and wiser. She’d been lured to this lonely town by the promise of a Wyoming cowboy. A miner. A transplanted Southern male definitely did not measure up to her needs.

  No one in this one-horse town must ever discover how Beau had fallen in love with her. He really had. Beau’s love blossomed all over his face each time they were together. He’d brought her gifts. He’d taken her to all the parties and lobster fests. He’d declared his love. She believed him.

  Everyone, absolutely everyone in that fishing village she called home, knew she and Beau would soon marry. Then he’d married another.

  Oh, she knew about Southern men and their Sense of Duty and their values. About how their families raised them to do the right thing no matter the sacrifice. About how charming they could be. About how they could fall in love and lack the backbone to marry the one they loved. About how they were bred to esteem money, prestige and duty more than love.

  The pain and humiliation still shredded her insides like broken glass. She would never trust her future to a Southern man again. In forlorn Angel Vale, she would stand on her own two feet. Her intended groom had written under false pretenses. He was supposed to be a Wyoming native. A cowboy. A miner.

  Not a Southern Gentleman from Atlanta.

  So she owed him nothing. He was another Beau Pettigrew, and she’d never trust him. She’d never marry him. She’d care for his baby until she found someone dependable and loving to take over that responsibility. Probably one of the other mail-order brides would like the chance. Then, if Matthew Thomas didn’t have a different groom for her, she’d move on. Perhaps back to Cheyenne. Though wild and not yet civilized, the larger town promised respectability. She’d counted three churches and some real clapboard houses as she and the other brides in the wagon rattled through Cheyenne’s streets. She’d keep tight hold of her money and when the time came, she’d open a bakery in Cheyenne. But first she’d ask Matthew if he had a genuine Wyoming man who needed an Angel.

  Until then, she’d settle in and take care of the baby. And Mr. False Pretenses, Frank Calloway, would have to keep his distance. Cowboy, indeed!

  CHAPTER FIVE

  After dinner Frank settled Amanda in the best room the lodging house offered, which was quite small. He heaved the second trunk on the floor of her room and stood hands on his hips, pulling in big lungs-full of air.

  “You can live here until I complete the cabin. Then you can move into the cabin. At Christmastime when the circuit riding preacher comes, we’ll marry.”

  He gazed around the tiny room. No place here for a baby.

  “Oh.”

  “I’ll stay in my shanty until we get married.” Place would get cold. Wind could whistle through the cracks in the plaster between the laths. “I’ll convert the shanty into a stable after we get married.” Stabling Diablo got too expensive with a new wife to think of.

  “You have a horse?”

  “Have to own a horse to be a sheriff.”

  She nodded. “I’d like to meet your son now, if you don’t mind.” Amanda’s emerald eyes seemed too busy checking out the room to rest on him.

  He stood a moment to admire her beauty. Pink blushed on her cheeks. Probably she’d never been alone in a bedroom with a man before.

  “I’ll bring Baby Frank here and you can meet him.”

  “Since it never actually rained, I’d rather go to your place and meet the baby, if you don’t mind. I’d like to see the environment to which he’s accustomed.” She perched on the edge of the one straight-backed chair in the room and smoothed her brown dress around her. Tiny pointed boot toes peered out from beneath her hem.

  Brown suited her blonde coloring. He’d often been with pretty girls, but Amanda truly had classic beauty. Alone in this room with her, how long could his heart beat so fast without causing an attack? Yet he couldn’t keep his gaze off her. She wouldn’t look at him. Why did she not like him? “It’s dark now. My place is a good two miles from here. Why not wait until morning?”

  “I’m not too tired for a brisk walk.” She rose, gracefully removed her cape from the coat rack, and blew out the candles on the bureau. The room darkened. He stood like an oaf in the middle, hands hanging at his sides.

  Her dress rustled as she walked past him to the door. Then she was outside in the large main room. “Are you coming?”

  What could he do but follow? Outside in the big room still smelling of flour, he draped her cape over her shoulders. Her aroma smelled so sweet he drew in a long breath. He almost tasted her loveliness. Was he drooling? He wiped a rough hand over his mouth.

  At the lodging house’s exterior door, he fitted her hand into the crook of his arm. With her beside him, marriage sounded like climbing the golden stairway to heaven. Nothing could be better than having this one woman walk with him through life’s long journey. Cold wind blustered in from the north, all but lifting his Stetson from his head. He raised his sheepskin collar around his ears. She pulled a velvet hood over her head and bent against the wind.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “Very.”

  He led her across the dark street and down the wooden sidewalk past the Mercantile. “This is my office and in back is the jail. Would you like a tour?”

  “Another time perhaps.” Her words swirled away on the wind.

  “My claim is another mile and a half down the road. My stake’s the second closest to Angel Vale. I’ve got our cabin three-quarters built.” He squeezed the hand tucked into his arm. “We’ll pass our home on the way to my shanty.” When had the cabin become our home in his thinking? He laid his other hand over the gloved fingers, warm around his arm.

  She nodded. Darkness kept him from seeing her face.

  Her tiny boots kept pace with his long steps. The wind whipped her cloak, so he used the flapping material as an excuse to take her fingers in his hand and wrap his other arm around her shoulders to keep the flying garment snug against her. She fit into his arm as if God designed her purely for him. Tucked in so close, he found it hard to breathe.

  She walked beside him, faster than he’d have thought possible with her smaller stride. Graceful, too. If there’d been anybody about, they’d have stepped aside to admire his beautiful bride.

  “Here’s our cabin.” The logs of the cabin he’d been so proud of reached out like a ghost in the darkness. She didn’t even slow, just hurried her steps as they passed. “I’ll have our home finished by Christmas. You’ll be mistress of the finest cabin in Angel Vale. I’m an expert builder. Been at the job twelve years now. So I know how to build a mighty fine log cabin.”

  “I thought you mined gold.”

  “Right. Back in Cheyenne my buddy talked me into riding to the wide open spaces of Angel Vale to make my fortune panning gold. I’ve been working my claim for the past six months.” He puffed out his chest. “It’s paying gold every day. The work slows in the winter because the creek’s so cold. It’ll ice over soon, and I’ll spend all my time building that cabin.”

  “I thought you were sheriff?”

  “So I am. I can hear any gunshots from town out on my stake. Any commotion I miss and Jake sends word for me to come pronto. I keep my horse saddled up, keep my guns strapped on, hop on my horse, and hightail it into town.”

  “Is there much law-breaking in Angel Vale?”

  “Seems as more and more miners and ranchers arrive, bandits blow in with them. I’ve had some nasty run-ins lately, but nothing I couldn’t handle.”

  “What if you get shot? Or killed?”

  Seemed a good time for more per
suasion. “Well, that’s where you come in, isn’t it? If I’m killed, as my wife, you’ll be solely responsible for Baby Frank. You’ll also gain full ownership of my claim, the cabin, and receive partial pay from my sheriff’s job. You’ll survive just fine. I’ve taken care of the financial business already.”

  “Oh.”

  The news didn’t seem to please her. Maybe she worried about his getting hurt. “We don’t have to wait for Christmas. We could get married this week, and then you’d be covered if anything happened to me.”

  “Oh.”

  She hadn’t jumped at his excellent idea. Before she arrived, he’d thought Christmas soon enough to tie the knot. But why wait? She was exactly what he hadn’t even known he wanted. The marriage broker had done him proud. The future spread out before him like the glorious view from Saddleback Mountain of the whole valley. Even if he’d never laid eyes on Baby Frank and was foot-loose and fancy free, he’d have courted Amanda. She was a Southern Belle through and through. The perfect woman for him. He wanted Miss Amanda Geoffrey as his wife.

  “There’s the shanty. It’s not much.” He pointed to a small shack built of clapboards with smoke from a stove-pipe chimney puffing white against the black sky. “I enclosed the open side of a lean-to when the baby arrived.”

  “You’re quite handy.”

  He gazed down into the pale oval of her upturned face, luminous in a fleeting shaft of moonlight. Were his skills a mark in his favor? “Necessity.” He wrenched open the door. She’d made the cold trek, and her chest didn’t even lift and fall with her breathing. Maybe she wasn’t as delicate as he’d thought.

  She stepped inside.

  Chang Fu, face wreathed in smiles, jumped up from the rocker Frank had made. “This the woman who mothers you baby. She very, very pretty. You like she. She like you. Chang Fu leave now.” He grabbed his long coat, pulled a round knitted cap over his balding head, flipped his long pigtail over his shoulder, and rushed to the door. “You pay me tomorrow. Chang Fu no return. Has laundry business to take care of.” The small Chinaman slammed the door and disappeared into the darkness.

  Frank dropped his hands to his sides. “That was unexpected. Um. Looks as if you start taking care of Baby Frank tomorrow. I’d hoped to give you time to settle in first.” Blasted Chinaman.

  “That’s no problem.” She tiptoed over to the cradle he’d made and peered inside. “Oh my goodness, Baby Frank looks like he’s soaked, and the blanket is wet as well. Do you have any clean cloths you use as diapers?” She swept out of her cloak and picked up the dripping baby.

  He rushed to the sideboard where one clean cloth rectangle lay.

  Baby Frank woke, gazed into Amanda’s face, and opened his blue eyes wide. He seemed mesmerized. His small mouth gaped, and he smiled.

  Frank grinned. “The kid has good taste. He likes you.” He tipped his hat.

  Amanda swiveled to impale him with that intense gaze of hers. “Why, this baby doesn’t resemble you at all. He’s blonde and blue-eyed.” She smiled down at the baby. “I suppose he favors his mother.”

  Not long ago he would have lied. Taken the easy way out. He unbuttoned his coat. “Probably.”

  “What happened to his mother?” She laid Baby Frank on the sagging cot and unpinned his wet diaper.

  He dampened a soft cloth with the last water from the pitcher on the sideboard and handed the rag to her. He’d have to make a run to the well for more water tonight after he walked her back to the lodging house.

  She gazed into his face with that intense expression he was growing to love. “You don’t know who the baby’s mother is, do you?”

  He gulped.

  She dried and worked at diapering the baby.

  “What are you, a mind reader?” How had she figured the problem out so quickly?

  “You’re not even sure if Baby Frank is yours?”

  Could she see right into his brain? He’d never felt so naked.

  “And, of course, because of your inflated Southern sense of Duty, you undertook raising this child even though you’re positive he’s not yours.”

  He stepped back. She seemed utterly against what was clearly his Christian duty. Could she read his mind?

  “And now, you’ve staked you’re entire future on bringing me out here to marry you and take care of Baby Frank.”

  Now that she put the situation that way, what he’d done did sound crazy. He frowned and pinched the bridge of his nose. That meant eleven other men in town were just as crazy. More like desperate.

  “So that’s that.” She plopped into the rocker, Baby Frank on her lap. “Do you have a bottle for him?”

  “I’ve got milk.” He turned, opened the hut’s door, and reached down on the doorstep for the milk bucket. He pulled off the lid and went about the complicated business of filling the baby bottle.

  She hummed a lullaby, rocked, fed the baby, and gazed around the small hut. “What’s Frank’s middle name?”

  “James.”

  “Do you mind if I call him Jamie rather than Baby Frank?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Amanda bit her lip. She placed the sleeping, contented-looking Jamie down into the lovely hand-made pine cradle, pulled a worn quilt from the sagging cot, and arranged the covering over the baby. She settled into the comfortable wooden rocker.

  Frank straddled a straight-backed, reed-seated chair on the other side of the nicely roaring fire. The shanty was small but comfortable with well-crafted furniture. Frank seemed a man of many abilities. She listened to Jamie’s measured breathing.

  “Quite gallant of you to take responsibility for Jamie. You have many admirable traits.”

  Frank sat rigid as a gatepost, both large hands on his thighs, staring into the dancing flames. His face flushed. “Thanks.”

  The stone fireplace, beautifully built, breathed expertise. With the one in the shanty so nice, the one inside the cabin must be breath-taking. The man had skilled hands. Outside the wind howled. When Frank wasn’t gazing at her like she’d become a delicious Christmas Plum Pudding, she could actually gather her scattered thoughts. Strange and incredibly exciting being alone with him. She clasped her arms around her waist. His presence caused butterflies to flutter in her stomach and blushes to heat her face. Now that Jamie slept, the silence seemed intolerable. Goosebumps bubbled on her arms.

  “Do you always wear two guns?”

  Dark, wavy hair fell over his forehead when he nodded. “Part of my job. If a desperado caught me without my weapons, he’d shoot me dead. I have enemies, and I uphold the law.” He smiled. “I hope my revolvers don’t bother you. I only take them off when I sleep.” He spread a well-formed, muscular hand over his face as if to wipe away difficult thoughts. “Then I keep both guns close where I can reach them fast.”

  “I see.” Rather than disliking his revolvers, the walnut grips stuck into the holsters gave her a sense of his invincibility. Not many men would dare pick a fight with Frank. “I believe it’s time I took my leave.” She smiled and stood.

  Frank pushed back from his chair, unfolded his athletic frame, strode to the window, pulled aside what looked like a flour-sack curtain, and gazed into the darkness. “Normally I’d be outside with the lanterns lit, adding on to our cabin. But I can’t leave with Chang Fu gone.” He turned and tipped his head down towards her. “Do you think you might come over early tomorrow and stay with Bab—Jamie while I finish our cabin?”

  “Oh.” She had promised to care for Frank’s baby. “Well, yes, I could drop by for a time if you like.”

  “Thank you. I’m in a hurry to build that cabin before winter sets in.”

  That fleeting look. The man wanted to marry her immediately. He feared she would leave. Delightful shivers slipped down her spine. She was wanted. Plus, the big man had a nice presence about him. An air of gentleness, yet one of command. Perhaps he was a man she could trust.

  A new expression flickered across his face to be immediately erased with a look she christened his Unrea
dable Sheriff Face. A firmer mouth, eyes slightly narrowed, and a noticeable hardening of the jaw. His stern countenance broadcast his intent to face any situation, pleasant or not.

  But she’d read that fleeting expression. Goodness, Frank yearned for her to stay tonight. He desired to get acquainted with the woman he expected to become his wife.

  “I don’t think my staying longer is a good idea. Perhaps tomorrow after breakfast we could discuss our situation.”

  His Unreadable Sheriff Face dissolved. Eyebrows raised and mouth slackened. “How do you…can you…?”

  “No. I’m not a mind reader.”

  Frank shook his head and meandered across the small room to squat on the edge of the cot. “One hundred years ago people in Salem would have hung you as a witch.”

  She laughed. “But, really, Frank, I am uncomfortable just you and me together here. I hate to leave you alone with Jamie, but surely you’re accustomed to caring for him.”

  He leaped up. “I’ve survived caring for Bab—Jamie before. But this is the first time I’ve been about to marry, and I’d like to get to know my bride.”

  She shifted on the comfortable rocker. “We have three months until Christmas.”

  “I have very little free time.” He stood at her feet, arms locked behind his back, brow furrowed. “But I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

  “Tomorrow morning at daybreak, I’ll return to care for Jamie.”

  He nodded. “You would do that? I thought Chang Fu would stay on until we got married.” Ruddiness tinged his cheeks. “I hate to put you out, but my day starts early.” He dragged his hand through his dark hair. “My cow’s in the stable across from my office.”

  “You have a cow?”

  “Right. I bring a bucket of milk here each morning and another in the evening for the baby. I’ll leave the milk on the front steps to stay cool.”

  “I saw the ingenious way you filled the baby bottle. I think I can handle that as well.”