His Christmas Bride (The Brides of Paradise Ranch (Spicy Version) Book 9)

by Merry Farmer

  Eden missed a step, then paused to shuffle her baby in her arms. “You left George Pickering in the church when you were supposed to marry him?”

  “Yes.” Holly lowered her head as they walked on.

  Eden let out a low whistle. “That’s some coincidence.”

  “What is?”

  “That you ended up coming out here as his mail-order bride.” Eden laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation.

  Holly didn’t think she would ever be able to laugh about it. “I came to apologize. I didn’t think he’d actually go through with the wedding.”

  “Well,” Eden began as they turned down a small side path that led to a fair-size, white-painted church with stained-glass windows. It made a pretty picture against the snow-covered ground. “Do you want to marry him?”

  Holly bit her lip, hugging herself and pretending it was because of the cold on the outside, not the cold on the inside. “I don’t have much choice now, do I?”

  “You always have a choice,” Eden insisted. “If you don’t want to marry him, tell me now and we’ll call the whole thing off.”

  “I can’t jilt George twice,” Holly said. They reached the stairs leading up to the church door. Holly skipped ahead to hold the door for Eden and her baby.

  “But if you don’t want to marry him, it would be even worse to go ahead with it,” Eden told her as the two of them stood in the open doorway.

  “Here, let me get that for you.” George dashed to catch up with them, taking the door from Holly and holding it so they could cross inside.

  Holly glanced from Eden to George. Her heart flipped and flopped in her chest. Time had been good to George. He wasn’t the brash young man she’d known before, but he still had the same refined good looks. He’d been a catch back in Baltimore, and she was certain he was still considered a catch to the people of Haskell now. And she’d caught him.

  Worse still, she realized that she was happy she’d caught him. The last thing she’d planned for was the old flame of affection she’d had for him to reignite, but there it was, burning like a Christmas star inside of her.

  “Hurry up, you two,” Eden called from several yards inside the church. “It’s cold enough in here without you holding the door open for stray reindeer to walk in.”

  “Sorry,” Holly whispered to George, then turned and rushed into the church to join Eden. Her cheeks burned hot.

  “Well, that answers that,” Eden murmured, her tone wry and teasing.

  “Answers what?” Holly hurried with her to the front of the church, her heart pounding against her ribs.

  She didn’t get her answer. George and the others—the bombastic man, the preacher, and a man with a mean scar across his face and a sheriff’s star on his chest—came in and shut the door behind them.

  “Let’s get this wedding underway,” the bombastic man said.

  “I’ll show you where I usually stand when I conduct ceremonies,” George said to the other preacher, starting up the aisle.

  “God’s work is not done in assigned spots or preordained places,” the preacher answered in a sermonizing voice. He paused halfway down the aisle, spreading his arms wide. “A man should feel the force of the Holy Spirit speaking to him, leading him to God’s place, God’s way.”

  A curious, pinched look came to George’s face. “Yes, well, it’s usually most efficient to conduct wedding ceremonies at the front of the chancel, here.” He came to stand on the edge of the slightly raised front of the sanctuary.

  “Come on, Robbins.” The bombastic man slapped the preacher on the back and carried him along to the front of the aisle, where Holly and George and the others now stood. “Wedding first, then we can debate the details of God’s presence later.” He laughed at his statement.

  The preacher—Robbins—scowled but moved along, stepping up onto the chancel. “This will do,” he muttered.

  “Holly, this is Rev. Alexander Robbins,” George introduced the man. “Howard brought him in specially to perform our ceremony.”

  “I see.” Holly nodded to Robbins. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for being here.”

  “I go where God calls me.” Robbins nodded in return.

  Holly willed herself not to be intimidated by the man, but there was something…disturbing about him, his height, his bushy, black beard, the austerity of his clothing.

  “And this is Howard Haskell,” George went on, stepping off the chancel to stand beside the bombastic man. “He’s the founder of our town and co-owner of Paradise Ranch.”

  Several pieces fit into place in Holly’s mind. “I’ve heard so much about you, sir.”

  “Call me Howard, please.” Howard stepped forward to take one of Holly’s gloved hands, pumping it up and down. “I will personally make sure you’re happy here in our town.”

  Before Holly could adjust to the man’s over-the-top friendliness, George turned to the man with the scar. “And this is Trey Knighton, Haskell’s sheriff and one of my closest friends. He’s here to serve as my best man.”

  “How d’ya do, ma’am?” Trey stepped forward to shake Holly’s hand, much more sedately than Howard had.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sheriff Knighton,” Holly replied. “Thank you for being here.”

  “Enough of the pleasantries,” Howard said, as loud as a circus ringleader about to begin a show. “Let’s have a wedding.”

  Holly’s chest squeezed tight in anticipation as their small group shuffled into the appropriate positions. George took her arm and led her gently to the center of the space in front of the chancel. Eden, Winslow beginning to squirm and fuss in her arms, took up the spot by Holly’s side. Trey stood on George’s other side, and Howard lingered in the middle, behind them all. Holly swallowed and held her breath, prepared to hear the words that she’d never gotten far enough to hear at her and George’s first wedding.

  “Oh, God most holy!” Robbins began in a voice loud and deep enough to rival Howard’s. “God, who smites sinners for their wickedness and scourges the earth of vice, we beg you to have mercy upon us.”

  Awkward tingles broke out on Holly’s skin. She peeked sideways at George. His expression was every bit as shocked and baffled as she felt. In all her life, she’d never heard a marriage ceremony start that way. Evidently, George hadn’t either.

  “As God himself has told us, it is better to marry than to burn,” Robbins went on, emphasizing the word “burn.” “And so, we beseech you to have pity upon these poor, weak souls, whose weakness is no match for Your might, whose sins are great indeed. Have mercy, oh Lord, have mercy!”

  George cleared his throat.

  Howard went further than that. “Land sakes, Robbins. Save that sort of fire and brimstone for Sundays. This is a wedding. It’s a glorious occasion.”

  “The way of the Lord is narrow and righteous,” Robbins replied, eyes ablaze. “The way to Satan is wide and paved with pleasures.”

  Holly and George exchanged another look. This one felt distinctly like an apology from George.

  “Get on with it,” Howard growled.

  Robbins narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips. “No soul is invisible to the eyes of God, no sin will go unpunished.” Before Howard could take him to task again, he took a scrap of paper from his pocket and sped on with, “Do you—” He glanced at the paper. “—George Xavier Pickering, take this woman—” He peeked at the paper again. “—Holly Florence Hannigan, to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

  George let out a breath and turned to face Holly. “I do,” he said without a flicker of emotion on his face. His eyes, however, told a different story—one Holly couldn’t read.

  “And do you, Holly Florence Hannigan, take this man, George Xavier Pickering, to be your lawfully wedded husband, to honor and obey as dictated by God’s will?”

  Holly blinked in surprise. He hadn’t attached so many conditions to George’s vows. She did her best to shake off the uncomfortable feeling it gave her, focusing on George inste
ad. “I do,” she promised.

  “Then in the eyes of God, as it was in the beginning, so shall His grace shine here.” Robbins stretched out his arms, though whether in blessing or warning was unclear. “Woe befall they who put asunder what God has joined together.”

  Silence followed the proclamation. Holly looked to George to know what to do. She was as far from confidence as she’d ever been.

  “Aren’t you going to invite them to kiss?” Howard asked.

  “Lust is the deadliest of sins,” Robbins boomed. “It is a mortal danger to the eternal soul.”

  “But they’re married now,” Eden argued. “There’s no harm in kissing your spouse.”

  “I should say not,” Howard agreed.

  “Go ahead,” Trey added.

  George stared at Holly. She wished above all else that she could know what he was thinking. His lips were set in a tight line—not at all the sort of lips looking for a kiss. She had no idea what to do.

  At last, George cleared his throat and said, “Let me show you where the marriage certificates are kept. We can all sign where we need to and you can be on your way.”

  He stepped away from her, gesturing for Robbins to follow him to a small door at the side of the room. He opened the door, and Holly caught a glimpse of an office on the other side.

  “Well,” Eden huffed. She didn’t say anything more. She didn’t have to.

  Holly didn’t feel any more married to George than she had ten years ago when she’d fled from the Baltimore church.

  Chapter 3

  Busy-work could only serve as a distraction for so long.

  “I send the marriage certificates and other official documents executed by the church to the territory’s governmental offices in Cheyenne,” George explained to Holly—without looking at her—after everyone else left.

  “What kinds of other documents?” she asked, following him into his office at the side of the chancel.

  “Birth certificates, death certificates. Anything official goes through me, for some reason.”

  He turned to look at her as he reached his desk and set their marriage certificate on the desktop. She had stopped a few feet inside of the doorway and looked around, her hands clasped in front of her, holding the gloves she’d taken off to sign the document. She still wore her wool coat and scarf. He was still bundled up too, for that matter. Holly’s cheeks were tinted pink from the cold. Or maybe it was from shock over what they’d just done. Her hazel eyes took in the room with an assessing gaze that revealed her quick mind. But it was that curious streak of white in her hair that held his attention. It wasn’t a sign of age. The rest of her hair was as dark and lush as ever.

  Her gaze made its way around the room, then landed squarely on him. Their eyes met. Her brow lifted a fraction, as if asking what he was staring at. George cleared his throat and focused on the papers arranged in neat piles on his desk.

  “Filing paperwork with the territory should be a town council job,” he fumbled on, pretending he hadn’t been so curious. “But Howard thinks I do a good job of it and wants me to continue doing what I’m doing. Howard is like that. He started the town and he more or less runs it the way he wants to. It’s been a boon for people with unusual backgrounds, like Wendy Montrose or Graham and Estelle Tremaine.” He paused for a moment, then added, “And Bonnie.”

  An awkward silence followed before Holly said, “I see.”

  George waited. She was sure to ask about Bonnie, pry into the details of how the two of them knew each other, what he was doing with a madam for a friend, question just how far their relationship went. He scrambled to come up with answers that would absolve him of any guilt while explaining how important it was to him that even marginalized people, like Bonnie and her girls, feel welcome at God’s table.

  It wasn’t until she continued to watch him in tense confusion that it dawned on him she didn’t have the first clue who Bonnie Cole was. He was working himself up over nothing.

  He cleared his throat, leaving their marriage certificate on the desk as he stepped back to Holly. “The long and the short of it is, Haskell isn’t your average frontier town. We like to think of ourselves as progressive while maintaining the community feeling of places back East, inclusive of all people while promoting traditional values of honesty and hard work.”

  “It sounds delightful.” A faint smile flickered across Holly’s face, but her flush wasn’t going away. She looked as out of place as if she was standing alone on the platform at Baltimore Union Station.

  He shouldn’t have married her. He should have let her go on with her life the way she’d obviously intended to. Now here she was, a fish out of water, or rather a fish swimming in all the water that flowed under the bridge of their past.

  He was saved from having to conjure up something to say by a knock coming from the door in his apartment. “Hello?” the muffled voice of Hubert Strong followed. “Rev. Pickering, are you home? Should I bring this around to the front of the church?”

  Holly blinked rapidly, surprised. George answered her questioning look by striding for the door that connected his office to the apartment where he lived. “Come,” he invited her. “This is where I live, at least for now.”

  “Rev. Pickering?” Hubert continued to knock.

  George checked over his shoulder to make sure Holly was with him, then headed for the door. He opened it to reveal Hubert standing on the church’s back steps, a medium-sized trunk at his feet.

  Hubert smiled in relief. “Oh good. I’m not interrupting anything.” He bent to lift the trunk. His young face dropped as he carried it through the doorway. “At least, I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

  “No, no, not at all.” George stepped back and gestured for Hubert to bring the trunk all the way into the room. “Holly, this is Hubert Strong, son of Athos Strong, the stationmaster.”

  “Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” Hubert was quick to add with all of his boyish enthusiasm.

  “Likewise.” Holly’s smile was warm and genuine, and a sign that she was recovering from her initial shock. “You look a bit young to be working so hard.”

  Hubert straightened with pride. “I graduated school this past spring, ma’am, and begged my pop to give me a job working at the train station. But what I really want to do is get a job as a porter. I want to travel and see the world.”

  Holly’s smile brightened…so much so that George was struck with a strange pang of jealousy. Had she ever smiled at him like that?

  “I’m sure you’ll do just that,” she told Hubert.

  “And I’m sure you’ll make a great preacher’s wife,” Hubert returned the compliment. He peeked to the side and must have caught the conflicted look on George’s face. His eagerness vanished. “Oh, sorry, is that not the right thing to say?”

  It was George’s turn to smile as if everything was perfectly fine. “Not at all, Hubert. It’s very kind of you to support Miss…uh, Mrs. Pickering that way.”

  A chill passed down his spine. Mrs. Pickering. After all these years.

  “Thank you…Hubert was it?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Hubert touched the brim of his cap, then backed toward the door. “If you’ll excuse me, we got a lot of bags and parcels in on that last train and Pop needs me to help deliver them.”

  “We won’t keep you,” George said, escorting him to the door. “Thanks again.”

  As soon as Hubert was gone and the door was shut behind him, the room crackled with tension. George took his time turning to face Holly. He needed to gather his thoughts so that he could figure out what to do next.

  “Is there a cupboard I could put my things in?” she asked, soft and bashful, once he did turn around.

  “I did clear a space, yes.”

  There was nothing else he could do right then but take her coat to hang it and show her around the tiny apartment. His quarters had been built into the church several years ago, but they were always intended to be for a bachelor. The entire space consiste
d of one main room that served as a kitchen, dining room, and parlor. He showed Holly to the bedroom at the opposite end of the space from his office, pointing out the shelves he’d freed in the bureau and the spot for her clothes in the wardrobe. The idea of having her feminine scent rub off on his clothes as they hung together sent an unnerving jolt of anticipation through him.

  She nodded along with his explanations until they came to the bed. Then she was silent. They were both silent.

  “I’ll sleep on the sofa in the other room until the manse is built,” he said when he couldn’t stand the awkwardness anymore.

  “The manse?” Her short question was far more eager than George assumed it would have been if they weren’t standing in front of a bed, thinking about sleeping arrangements.

  “Yes.” He grasped at that escape and ran with it, stepping around the bed and leading her back out to the main room, to one of the windows. “As soon as Howard heard I was going to send away for a bride, he insisted on building a manse in back of the church. I think it’s his way of congratulating me and encouraging me to have a lot of children.”

  “Oh.” Holly’s reply came out as startled.

  Sure enough, when George reached the window and turned to beckon her to join him, she was bright red again. She approached the window cautiously, staring out at the winter-white landscape stretching away from the church.

  “See there.” George pointed, working hard not to feel like he’d made a huge mistake in mentioning lots of children. “Rupert Cole and his partner barely had time to plot out the foundation before the first snowfall, but those ridges are where the house is going to be.”

  “It’s going to be big,” she said, studying the outline.

  He hummed in agreement, then continued to study the outline, having no idea what else to do.

  “Do you want a lot of children?”

  Her quiet, earnest question shook him to his core. He straightened and backed away from the window. Not quite able to look her in the eye, he said, “Well, that was part of the point of sending away for a bride.”