It was also the way he loved his little girl. At first she’d thought he neglected Lily…leaving her alone for such long stretches of time. But she came to realize that his lifestyle was one of necessity and as much as he left Lily alone…he made it up to her in the small amounts of time they had together. She loved to watch them together laughing or singing silly songs or reading a book. He taught his daughter how to ride a horse and use a gun. He taught her how to grow a garden with her own two hands. He made sure that she had the tools she would need if anything ever happened to him and she was left truly alone.
And, as strange as it might sound, Hannah loved him for the way he loved his wife. That first night when he warned her he wouldn’t talk about Cassandra that love had been written in his eyes and on his face. It was the kind of love that didn’t need any words. It was the kind of love that would truly last forever. He loved her as much now as he had when she was alive and as much as that prevented Hannah from ever having him…it made her want him that much more. It was the kind of love that most women only dream about and although it hurt that she wasn’t the one he wanted to give it to, she felt blessed just to have witnessed it.
“Hannah?” She was standing next to the holding pens and she jumped when she heard him say her name. She turned towards him and her heart began to race out of control. He was in his thermal pants and his boots. He hadn’t even bothered to put his shirt back on. His chiseled chest and arms shone in the moonlight and Hannah’s immediate desire was to trace the outlines of them with her fingers.
“Luke, what are you doing out here half dressed? You’re going to catch a cold.”
He smiled. She melted. “It’s still hot out here, Hannah. The question is why are you out here walking around in the dark? What if you stepped in a hole and twisted your ankle, or stepped on a rattlesnake?” Hannah felt her body go tense.
“There are rattlesnakes?”
Trying to keep a straight face now he said, “There could be. Why aren’t you in bed, Hannah?”
“I couldn’t sleep. I have a lot on my mind.”
She saw his eyebrow twitch. He wanted to know what it was, but he was afraid to ask. After several beats of silence he said, “Are you unhappy here?”
She let her eyes meet his and she said, “I love it here. I love this ranch and everything about it. I love Lily. She’s the cutest, sweetest, smartest little girl in the world…but I can’t stay here, Luke. I have to go home.”
He looked like someone had punched him in the stomach. He actually winced. “Why?”
“Because as much as I thought I could do this and not care if you ever fell in love with me…I was wrong. I’m kidding myself Luke…and so are you. Neither of us will ever be happy this way.”
Hannah wasn’t sure what she expected him to say, but what came out of his mouth next was not it, “Finding out that I could want any woman as much as I wanted Cassie was a shock. I didn’t know what to do with those feelings.”
“You want me?” she asked, confused. “You barely look at me…we hardly speak…”
“It’s easier on me that way. Every time I look at you, I want to touch you. I want to rip that braid out of your hair and run my fingers through it…I want to kiss you.”
Hannah had a tear running down her face. “Then what is the problem?”
“I feel guilty. I feel like I’m cheating on her. I feel like I’m desecrating her memory. I get so mixed up in my head with all of these feelings that I don’t know what to do with them sometimes. I don’t know how to explain it. It never comes out in words the way I feel it in my heart and think it in my head.” His breaths were ragged now, coming in big gulps all of a sudden. He took a shaky breath in and said, “I can’t tell you what it feels like to lose someone that you thought you were going to grow old with. We were supposed to raise our family together…and she was just gone like that.” He snapped his fingers. I wasn’t expecting to be a widow in my twenties with a toddler to raise alone. I was expecting her to be here with me. The fact that she’s not makes me angry and the fact that I want you to step in where she left off makes me feel all kinds of guilt.”
Hannah wiped her face on the back of her hand and she said, “Did Cassie want you to be happy?”
“Yes.”
“Did she want Lily to be happy?”
“Yes.”
“Do you believe that in spite of everything, God wants you to be happy?”
“Yes.”
“I want you to be happy. Don’t you see Luke; you are the only one holding you back. You’re the only one denying yourself happiness. I didn’t know your wife, but if she was anything like your daughter, she would give you a good scolding and tell you to get back on that horse and get on with your life. Your future doesn’t have to be about me. I can go home and I can still have a bright future.”
Luke took a step towards her. She didn’t move. “I don’t want you to go home. I want my future to be about you.”
“I don’t want to go either Luke…but I have to protect my heart.”
“I won’t break it…I might bend it a little because I’m a fool and I almost didn’t see that I was pushing one of the best things in my life away…It might still take me a while to figure out how to do this right again…but I can do it…I want to do it. Please don’t go.”
“I can’t compete with a ghost Luke.”
He reached out and put his arm around her waist. He brought his mouth down but instead of her lips, he let it land on her neck. He left soft little kisses all over her neck. Hannah tipped her head back and Luke unwrapped the ribbon holding her braid together. She felt his hot breath and the vibrations of his voice as he said once again, “Please don’t go.” His hand was fisted in her hair as he brought his lips crashing down on top of hers. The sensations of his soft lips and the taste of his tongue as he explored her mouth were almost too much for Hannah to bear. She was dizzy and she couldn’t breathe.
Luke pulled back far enough so that he could look into her eyes and he said, “You scare me to death Hannah.”
“Why?”
“Because you are the only woman on earth who can compete with the ghost in my head. Even Cassie’s voice is in my head telling me that I’m a fool if I let you go. I’m not over her Hannah and maybe I never will be completely. She’s a part of me and she always will be. But the heart’s capacity for love is so much bigger than that…I just need to learn how to open mine up. Please don’t go.”
Feeling emboldened by his words, Hannah put her arms up around his neck. He pulled her up into another long, hot kiss. He licked her lips and tasted her and then in a move that she didn’t see coming, he slid down into the mud underneath them and got on one knee.
“Hannah Louise McMurray…”
“What are you doing, Luke?”
“What I should have done already. Now let me finish…Hannah Louise McMurray…will you marry me?”
The tears were so thick in Hannah’s eyes that she couldn’t see straight. She nodded and pulled on his arms until he stood back up on his feet. Then she stood on her toes and placed her hand on the side of his face and said, “I love you Luke.”
“I love you too Hannah. Thank you, for not giving up on me.”
*****
THE END.
My True Love
Mail Order Bride
CHRISTIAN MICHAEL
Chapter 1
Lloyd Dutton looked down at the child in his arms. She was almost a year old and he was starting to see her mother’s features come out on her face.
Nell, why did you leave me here? With her?
He instantly felt guilty. He loved his daughter Josie, but he hadn’t wanted to have children. At least not right away. The Good Lord had decided differently. And then he’d taken Nell away.
The grief knifed through him, as sharp as when she’d died eight months ago. She’d only had a few months on this earth with her child. How was that fair?
He closed his eyes, resting his head back against the rock
ing chair. The faint scrape of wood against wood the only sound in quite room. He had talked with Pastor Peter again that day. Lloyd couldn’t see how a good God would allow such a terrible thing to happen, and yet Peter had pointed out how he had grown closer to his daughter. Lloyd was again reminded that, despite the pain he felt, God was still in control. If only Lloyd could have better prepared for the future.
He shook his head. Peter had reminded him—again—that he was always trying to plan for things that couldn’t be planned for. His curse.
Then he thought of the second half of their conversation. About how Lloyd should look for a new bride. As if he could just put his feelings of her in a box and place it on a shelf with the other things of hers that he’d packed away. Impossible.
And yet the man had a point. Lloyd couldn’t go on much longer having ladies from the church watch Josie while he worked long hours as a ranch hand. It was either find a live in nanny—which seemed expensive and inappropriate—or get married again.
He almost laughed, though there was nothing humors about the situation. It was just the fact that he was thinking of marriage in such sterile terms. Peter had suggested a mail order bride and Lloyd had taken the Matrimonial Journal with him, though it had mostly been to make Mark happy. If he couldn’t appease him with his views on God, he could at least appear to heed his advice.
Moving slowly so as not to awaken Josie, Lloyd placed his daughter in her bassinet and opened the journal to peruse the advertisements. He held out little hope, but it he would at least be able to tell Peter that he had tried.
His gaze scanned down one column after another until he stopped on one that interested him. They listed accomplishments such as cooking and baking, but also referenced childcare experience. He felt underhanded, thinking of this potential wife as merely a nanny in job but a wife in title.
He paused, reading through the advertisement again. She sounded down to earth and responsible. Maybe….
Lloyd ran a hand over his face. Was he really considering this? His heart belonged to the woman he’d buried months ago. Was he so quick to fill her spot in his life?
Then again, he was agreeing to marry—not to love. He couldn’t expect for that to happen again, but he could choose the best mother for Josie. That was all that mattered. He would do anything for his daughter, even if that meant marrying again.
***
Millie Hoff studied her sister’s expression. It was never easy to tell what Morgan was thinking, but today was exceptionally difficult. She kept her eyes glued outside the window of the train but it appeared as if she wasn’t seeing anything.
“Morgan, what’s going on? Talk to me?” Millie asked.
After a few moments Morgan turned to look at her. “I can’t help but feel like this was a mistake.”
Millie’s heart pounded. “It’s not.”
Many things in their life so far had felt like a mistake. Like a father who beat them, a mother who was out most of the night with men other than her husband, living in a rat-infested apartment. But this—escape from all of that—was not a mistake.
“He doesn’t even know me.”
“Nonsense,” Millie said. “I didn’t share anything about myself that was too personal. We’re practically twins. It’ll be fine.”
“But what will he say when he finds out…”
Millie’s heart constricted as her sister cradled her abdomen, the slightest of bulges visible but only to a sister who could tell.
“He already has a child. He’ll welcome another.”
Morgan’s face heated. “I don't think that’s what most men would think.”
Millie swallowed. Morgan had been assaulted a little over two months ago when Millie had been gone to the small seamstress shop she worked in. They hadn’t known until a few weeks ago that she was pregnant. At the time the only alternative Millie saw was to pass her sister off as the one who had been writing to Lloyd Dutton from a mail order bride add Millie had placed.
She had already negotiated to bring her sister with her, but now that Morgan was with child it only made sense to have her marry Lloyd. Millie was still young and could make her own way in life, but Morgan—an unwed mother—would be ridiculed.
Their plan, if it could be called that, rested on the good graces of Mr. Dutton, and the sacrifice of Millie, but there was nothing she wouldn’t do for her sister.
“He’s a nice man Morgan.” But nice was even the beginning to who Lloyd Dutton was. He was kind, caring, funny…
She thought back to their first letters with fond memories. At that point he had only known her as Miss Hoff. They had made a joke out of being exceptionally formal. She’d been thrilled when he went along with it.
But, when it became clear that Morgan needed a husband more than Millie did, she had told him her name was Morgan. Her sister had been furious when she found out, but by then it was already too late.
“He may be nice but all men have a mean side.”
Millie knew her sister spoke out of hurt. “Morgan, you’ve got to at least try to get to know him before you make up your mind about him.”
“Look Millie, I didn’t ask for this. Any of it.”
Millie felt the sting of Morgan’s words—she was talking about more than just their train ride out west, but Millie couldn’t help but feel personally affronted.
“I’m sorry but—” The train lurched forward and Morgan and Mille both reached out hands to brace themselves against the sudden slowing.
“What’s going on?” Morgan gasped.
“I don’t know?”
Cries rose up around the train but one word sent ice-cold fear through Millie’s heart—Native Americans.
Chapter 2
Lloyd’s pulse thudded through his veins like the pounding of horse’s hooves. The train Morgan and her sister were coming in on had been delayed by a week due to a Native American attack. He’d learned of the news early on but felt helpless as to what he could do. He couldn’t leave Josie with anyone and even if he did race off to save her there was no telling what he would find.
Word had come that the train would finally be arriving that day but he didn’t know what he would find. Would Morgan be all right?
He placed the platform but halted as soon as he heard the sound of the train, then he stopped, Josie in his arms, and watched. Lloyd barely dared to breathe, but soon the train came to a stop and several passengers got off. One of them was a woman with dark hair and slight frame with red-rimmed eyes. Could it be Morgan? He knew she had negotiated with him to bring her sister along but this girl was alone.
Chancing speaking with the wrong girl, he stepped forward. “Morgan Hoff?”
The girl jerked, as if his words had shocked her, and looked up at him. Her lip trembled and he could see that she’d been crying.
“She was my sister,” the girl said.
His heart plummeted. Was?
“I—I don’t understand.” Josie began to fuss and he readjusted her position in his arms. The girl’s eyes dropped to his daughter and the shadow of a smile flitted across her features before it was gone, replaced by grief.
“She died in the attack on the train.” More tears filled her eyes and she reached up to place a hand over her mouth.
“I—” he halted, unsure of what to say. He was well acquainted with grief but it never helped to say that. “I'm sorry.” He looked at her—really looked—and realized she was exactly like he had pictured Miss Hoff, that is, Morgan.
They had started writing letters on extremely formal terms and it had become a bit of a joke. Something he’d been shocked by really, but Miss Hoff—Morgan—had such a healthy sense of humor that it had helped him laugh again.
She’d finally told him her name was Morgan, but he would always think of her as Miss Hoff just as he wished she would call him Mr. D as she’d come to do. She claimed it was after a favorite novel by Jane Austen but he liked that she had a nickname for him—even if it was formal.
None of that mat
tered now. She was dead—yet another woman in his life whom he’d come to care about snatched away from him.
He snapped back to reality. Her sister was here without her. What was he supposed to do?
“I…I’m not quite sure what to do,” he admitted honestly.
She seemed to rally, wiping her tears. “I'm sorry. I’m not myself. I’m Millie Hoff. I’m pleased to meet you Mr. D—Dutton. Please, call me Millie.”
He started. Had she almost called him Mr. D? No, he thought. He shook his head; he was imagining things now. “Why don’t we go to the parish house? I’d arranged for you and…well I’d arranged housing here.”
She nodded and, before he could say anything else that could prove to be more painful than helpful he led the way through the towns streets toward the parish house.
His thoughts wandered as he held Josie close. What was he to do with Millie? She had come out West to accompany her sister and he’d agreed seeing as he’d rather have a wife and her sister than no wife at all, but now he only had the sister. It was an awkward position to be put in, but even thinking that made him feel guilty.
[2015] A Love Miracle Page 35
