Promenade With Penelope
Page 9
As she strode toward her with a small, sweet smile on her face, Jeremiah couldn’t help but wonder how he’d gotten so lucky? What had he done to ever be so blessed? Then he remembered what the pastor had said about grace being a gift from God and something that couldn’t be earned. And Jeremiah realized that was exactly what Penelope was for him. She was a gift from God, just like any good wife would be for any man. God graces men with good women for wives, and Jeremiah had happily received his blessing.
Penelope placed her tiny little hand in his, and Jeremiah squeezed it as they turned toward the pastor and said their vows. Those nerves that Jeremiah had been battling fled away as they continued with the service. Each word that she spoke as she promised to love, honor, and obey him made him feel mushy inside. Then he promised the same for her... until death they would part.
In front of God and all the witnesses in the church, Jeremiah leaned down at the end and took his new wife into his arms. Then he kissed Penelope lightly. It was only their second kiss since they’d been properly courting each other, and Jeremiah savored it by making it last longer this time. The heat went from his lips to his toes in an instant, like lightning. And when they parted, the church rose up in hoots, hollers and wolf whistles. When he peered over toward the crowd, Angel met eyes with him as she pulled her fingers from her mouth, ending the loudest of all the whistles.
He couldn’t help but laugh. Penelope squeezed his arm against her and looked up at him. “I love you, Jeremiah,” she whispered.
He smiled down at her. “I couldn’t love you more, Penelope.”
And he meant it with all his heart.
The End.
Read more of the books in this series:
Matchmaker’s Ball
About the Author
P. Creeden is the sweet romance and mystery pen name for USA Today Bestselling Author, Pauline Creeden. Her stories feature down-to-earth characters who often feel like they are undeserving of love for one reason or another and are surprised when love finds them.
Animals are the supporting characters of many of her stories, because they occupy her daily life on the farm, too. From dogs, cats, and goldfish to horses, chickens, and geckos -- she believes life around pets is so much better, even if they are fictional. P. Creeden married her college sweetheart, who she also met at a horse farm. Together they raise a menagerie of animals and their one son, an avid reader, himself.
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More Books by P. Creeden
A Marshal for Christmas
A lonely and abused woman without a home. A Marshal who is given the sudden responsibility of two children. A mail-order bride situation that has fallen to ruin. Can Lottie find a home and a family by Christmas?
December 1880
When Lottie Reiner lost her father in the war, her mother fell to pieces. At the young age of eleven, Lottie began caring for her catatonic mother. But when both her mother and grandfather pass away months apart, Lottie becomes nothing but a burden to her family. Her grandmother pushes Lottie to get married before it’s too late. But Lottie is a twenty-seven-year-old spinster with no experience raising children. Isn’t it already too late?
Deputy US Marshal Archer King comes from a family of law keepers. His father was a US Marshal, and his mother worked as a Pinkerton Agent with Kate Warne. When his only sister passed on in childbirth, his brother-in-law swore he could care for the children on his own. And Archer was to check in on them, but in almost two years, he’s neglected that duty to his sister. When the father, Sam Hodge, goes missing, he finds out exactly what kind of dire situation the children have been subject to.
After being turned out of her home, Lottie heads to Durant, Oklahoma, where Sam Hodge and his two children live, in the hopes of becoming a new wife and mother. Only the mail-order situation does not turn out the way Lottie had hoped, and many of the things that Sam had told her in his letters turn out to be lies. The only thing true is the children, and Lottie is fast becoming attached to them. But what will happen when Sam is found? Will she have the opportunity to get a home and a family before Christmas?
An Agent for Josie
March 1872
Marriage has always been the furthest thing from Josie Roth’s mind. After all, the majority of men cannot suffer for a woman to vote, much less tolerate one who is smarter than him. For want of a son to take over his practice, her father raised his only child, Josie, to do the job. Even though she graduated summa cum laude at the New England Women’s College of Medicine, many in New England still looked down on her, believing that women should be either nurses or midwives. So, her father decided to take to the rails and travel out West, to Wyoming, and start a practice where there was a shortage of good doctors, hoping she’d be less frowned upon, being a woman.
Billy Hogge worked with Allan Pinkerton as an agent in Chicago before the fire. In fact, as a former fireman, he had volunteered to help bring the flames under control before they consumed the city. When the Chicago office shuts down, he joins the Pinkerton agency in Denver to work on crimes out west. He sees it as a great opportunity to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life.
The two of them meet under the unfortunate circumstance of Josie’s father’s death. But she’s too sick to take care of arrangements, so Billy does them for her. When she finally comes to herself and mourns her father, she discovers that the town in Wyoming isn’t free of the prejudices that she’d been dealing with in the East, and she turns to the Pinkerton agency for employment. What happens when these two find out that the only way to work their next case together is by getting married first?
An Agent for Opal
Opal Cahill was raised as the only girl in a family full of rough and tumble men. They taught her to fight and survive and taught her to push aside fantasies, because reality is as harsh as the rough side of a cat’s tongue. But she could never let go of reading about adventures of life in the west and dreaming that she might one day become a Pinkerton agent, like her hero, Kate Warne. But when her father passes, she’s stuck living in Atlantic City with her cousin who sometimes has them living in rundown shacks and sometimes, high end hotels. Until one day, that odd lifestyle catches up with them both. When Opal must choose a place to go out west, she heads to the Pinkerton office in Denver in the hopes that they might still interview her though it’s months after they originally advertised they were accepting applicants.
Caleb Wade has just come back from going deep undercover. He returns to the Pinkerton office and runs into one of the most stubborn, frustrating, and interesting women he’s ever met. When he finds out that she’s not only his new partner but his new wife, he digs in his heels before he decides to treat it as another undercover act. Together the two travel to Ohio to help Archie’s good friend and owner of the Turner Theater deal with an arsonist who has already succeeded in burning down the theater once and threatens to do it again. Both Caleb and Opal must learn to get past their stubborn ways and work together in order to capture the person who threatens not only the building but the lead actress as well.
A Bride for James
A boxer who’s tired of fighting. A persecuted woman with an unwanted suitor. A marriage neither of them want, but both desperately need.
James Fisher is Champion of the Kansas City Pugilist Society, but it's a title he doesn't wear proudly. When t
he man he won the last match with dies overnight from his injuries, James doesn't want to see good people hurt for sport. The only problem is that his contract with the Pugilist Society remains in effect until death or marriage.
But who wants to marry a bruised and broken boxer?
When Abigail Lee's house is foreclosed on, she's left desolate but not alone. Her best friend, a former slave, is willing to allow her to live with them. But the people in town don't like her living situation, and an unwanted suitor comes knocking on the door, making threats. Abby doesn't want anyone to be hurt on her account but feels stuck between the frying pan and the fire until Cecilia comes up with a plan.
A Bride for Henry
A spinster raised to run a ranch. An injured man with a broken heart. A wedding neither of them want, but both need more than they will ever admit.
October 1867, North Texas
Brienne Walsh has resigned to life as a spinster and the lone heir to the Walsh Ranch upon her grandfather's death. She's always been too tall, too strong, and too unprepossessing to be appealing to any man. Yet when the bank calls on her grandfather's loan, telling her to either pay the full amount due by the end of the month, or marry, she is thrown into an arrangement she can't abide but must endure.
Love has been unkind to Henry Miller. His first love promised to wait for him to return from fighting for the Union in the War, but when he returned, he found her married to his best friend. The betrayal cut him deeper than the bullet from a Confederate Springfield. He lost his fiancé and his best friend in one fell swoop two years ago, and now he finds himself losing his father and his home in another. With nowhere else to turn, he chooses to follow his father's wishes and sign a document he never thought he'd consider again--a marriage certificate.