Mountain Christmas Brides

by Mildred Colvin

  Still, remembering that others were watching, Larkin sat up like a proper lady, so as to not bring any dishonor on her parents, and refocused on her agenda. The one that had begun after E.V. escorted Abigail to the dance floor for the third—third!—time.

  She almost felt a tad angry.

  All right, she did feel a tad angry … in fact, more than a tad angry.

  “I think I shall confront E.V. once this dance is over.”

  “Confront? You?”

  “I can confront.” At Anna’s dubious look, she added, “Why do you think I’m incapable of confronting someone?”

  “Just where did Tuck go to find those sandwiches?” Anna rested her empty punch glass atop the empty one Larkin held. She rubbed the shifting bump on her almost-nine-month tummy. “This babe is a prized whopper in the making. Larky, you can do better than E.V. Renier. I think—”

  “Please don’t mention—”

  “Willum Tate,” Anna continued without skipping a beat, “personifies faithfulness and, according to the grapevine telegraph, those green eyes have stopped many Tumwater ladies in their tracks.”

  Larkin said nothing because she was used to Anna’s weekly Willum Tate exaltation. And, truly, letting Anna have her say was far easier than trying to explain that she had no romantic feelings toward the impeccable-though-surly carpenter. Life had been more pleasant when plucky, fun-loving Anna fished, rummaged through the woods, and swam in the creek with Larkin. Before she ever noticed that members of the opposite gender were, well, quite appealing.

  Or at least Jeremiah Tucker was.

  Anna leaned closer and spoke low even though they were the only two in this corner of the barn. “Kathleen said when she was in the mercantile this morning she heard Mrs. Bollen tell her daughter-in-law Martha that she heard cranky ol’ Mrs. Ellis complimenting Willum Tate at the livery to Mr. and Mrs. Parker, and Mrs. Ellis doesn’t compliment anyone but you. Ever.”

  “Why do you think that is?” Larkin asked to distract Anna from praising the splendidly handsome Mr. Tate, who was currently dancing with Anna’s sister even while oddly focused on Natalie Bollen, who was dancing with the handsome-but-not-as-quite Mr. John Seymour, who the grapevine telegraph seemed convinced would be Natalie’s first official suitor once she turned eighteen next June. Larkin quickly added, “About people saying Mrs. Ellis is cranky. She is quite a dear heart once you get to know her. I don’t understand why everyone in town hates her. Poor Mrs. Ellis is truly misunderstood.”

  Anna didn’t answer. Instead she stared at Larkin for what seemed to be a minute or two.

  “My friend,” she finally said, “you aren’t and will never be crafty. There’s nice, and then there’s you—nicer than nice. You’re sweet, sincere, and selfless.”

  “Thank you, but you’re as sweet—”

  “Shh. I have never heard either you or Mr. Tate say anything critical about that ornery old woman who almost shot off my left foot when I came within two feet of her back fence because I foolishly—and incorrectly—thought that the skunk chasing me was worse than Mrs. Ellis. You and Willum are clearly suited.”

  “And E.V. and I aren’t?”

  “It’s been two years, Larky. If he really cared about you, he’d have asked to court you by now. E.V. doesn’t deserve you. Willum Tate, though, needs a good woman.”

  After a sigh at hearing the name of the man Anna had championed this year as the ideal husband … after mine of course, Larkin thought back to Anna’s descriptive of E.V. rhyming with trout. “There’s no fitting word for E.V. that rhymes with—”

  “Lout,” Anna blurted.

  Larkin rolled her eyes. “He isn’t a lout.”

  “Gout.”

  “That’s a disease.”

  “Indian scout, unbearably stout, German bean sprout.”

  Larkin fought back her smile. “Now you’re being silly.”

  A smug grin teetered on Anna’s lips. Her brown-eyed gaze shifted from Larkin to the dancers, then back to Larkin, and her voice softened with what seemed—no, felt—like sympathy. “Doubt.”

  Larkin dropped her gaze to the yellow shoes peeking out from the ankle-length ivory-lace hem of her gown. She poked at the straw under her toes. That tingle of doubt she’d been trying to ignore rang like the bells she’d received the last two Christmases from an anonymous admirer. She liked to dream they were from the blond man with an adorable cleft in his chin, the man who gave her such tender attention the first autumn he moved into Tumwater, the man who faithfully attended worship services and always sat in the pew one row back and to the left of her, and who bought her meal baskets at every church auction.

  The quiet sawmiller who every Wednesday at a quarter past nine met her at the front steps to the Bollens’ parsonage and delivered half a ham while she brought a basket of pies or fruit, and then walked her home. Even on the days it rained, which was most days, after all, because when did it not rain in the Washington Cascades?

  A man that faithful, that consistent, had to care, right?

  He loved her. She knew he did because he said more in the looks he gave her than in any conversation they’d ever had.

  And they’d had myriad conversations in the last two years—enough for her to learn how important overcoming his father’s failings was to E.V. and for him to learn she feared embarrassing her parents.

  Yet that same man had not spared a glance at the two friends sitting near the entrance of the barn. No, Eric Valentin Renier III hadn’t looked her way any more than Willum Tate had. Did he think she’d given up on them having a future together? Or had his feelings merely changed?

  They hadn’t spoken in over a week. During the last conversation, E.V. had seemed irritated, wouldn’t look at her, and jerked back every time she drew close.

  “Larkin, you’re doing it again.”

  “What?” she said without looking up.

  “That glazed look you get when you’re deep in thought. I don’t care if it’s what those with Chinook blood do. It’s creepy.”

  Oddly not humored by the good-natured ribbing, Larkin turned in her chair to face Anna, whose delicate beauty glowed with love and pregnancy. “Do you think I should tell him how I feel?” she hesitantly asked. “Say yes, and I’ll do it, right here in front of everyone.”

  Anna’s winged brows drew together in sadness. “Oh Larkin, when have you ever done anything that would intentionally draw attention to yourself?”

  Larkin flinched. Never. But this was 1890, the year she’d vowed would be different, and up to this point, she hadn’t done a single thing different or courageous or adventuresome because she never did anything different or courageous or adventuresome unless she was with Anna. And ever since Anna married Jeremiah Tucker, Larkin had even less opportunity to be anything but the dullard she was.

  At twenty-one, she was the only female in Tumwater of courting age who had never had a suitor. Either no one had the courage to approach her father or, worse, none wanted a nicer-than-nice wife.

  Why not tell E.V. that she loved him? That she wanted to marry him.

  She had little to lose and all the world to gain.

  A year from now she wanted to be the one sitting in a chair soothing her rounded belly while Anna brought her copious amounts of beverages.

  Decision made, she reached over Anna to set the punch cups in Jeremiah’s chair. She then deftly removed the pin holding her feathered hat atop her head. The last thing she wanted was to join E.V. in a dance and have her hat slide over her eyes, blocking her view, causing her to trip over his feet, and consequently crash into someone while flipping her skirts up in the air. Not that that had ever happened to her, but it could. One should always prepare for the worst while expecting the best.

  She stood and placed her hat in her vacant seat. “Don’t let me leave here without it.”

  Anna gasped. “You’re really going to do this, aren’t you?” She grabbed Larkin’s hand and drew up to standing. Panic blanched her face. “I know I almost
lost Tuck by letting him think I loved Garrick when I really loved him, but what will your parents say? Just think about what the grapevine telegraph will say. Don’t do it.”

  As far as the grapevine telegraph went—well, people never gossiped about her, because she never did anything worth gossiping about. She could speak to E.V. here at the wedding reception without anyone listening in because, after all, why would anyone want to overhear what she had to say? She was the last person anyone would ever suspect of doing something noteworthy or mysterious.

  Considering Papa was at home tending to Mama, they wouldn’t know what happened until she told them in the morning. By then she and E.V. would be courting. And Papa would see they were in love and would agree to the marriage.

  Being an heiress, being someone everyone except Abigail Leonard liked, being known as sweet and sincere and selfless—none of it mattered much if she had no one to enjoy life with. Anna had Jeremiah and soon a baby, too. Her parents had their own lives.

  She didn’t want to grow old alone.

  She didn’t want to be Mrs. Ellis, warning people away with her shotgun because she believed the pain of another broken heart was worse than being alone.

  She wanted to love and be loved because she believed—no, she knew to the depths of her soul—she was created to love and be loved. And since her father allowed her to court—she was old enough, after all—then, logically, wouldn’t it be acceptable for her to initiate the courting? Even Ruth had to nudge the honorable-yet-stubborn Boaz into action.

  Time to be bold and adventuresome.

  Hearing the music of the dance dwindling to the end, Larkin kissed Anna’s cheek.

  “I vow before you have that baby, E.V. and I will be married. No matter what it takes. No matter what I have to throw to the wind.” She felt the corners of her mouth draw upward. “Within reason of course.

  Chapter 2

  He wasn’t going to look her way. Wasn’t. Not even when his position on the dance floor brought her into his direct line of sight. Because once he did, E.V. knew he would be lost in the depths of those eyes. Eyes so greenish-gold they reminded him of mossy tree bark—words not worthy of a Shakespearean sonnet and words he certainly would never share with her. He wasn’t a man with much to say. And besides, he knew his girl didn’t need or desire besotted praise.

  Loving Larkin Whitworth made him more, made him want to share more, made him want to be more.

  What he needed though was time.

  And he had spent enough of that on his knees in prayer during almost two years of having his marriage proposals rejected by her father, to know he also needed a miracle in the form of a large lumber supplier. Once he’d built Renier Lumber Company into the most profitable mill in Tumwater—and one more large supplier would do it—he’d prove his work ethic, worthiness, and his ability to provide for Larkin to her wealth-focused father.

  Tonight he was two steps closer to that miracle.

  Literally.

  All he had to do was pay enough attendance on Abigail Leonard for the other bachelors in town to realize she was an available female, even if the Caesar-like nose she’d inherited from her father was too large for her face. To be fair, she was no Larkin, but neither was she the least attractive female in the room. Considering the number of men who had already danced with Miss Leonard at the wedding, E.V. felt confident that his—and her father’s—plan was succeeding.

  Competition brought out the warrior instincts in every man, especially with a woman involved.

  As the musicians allowed the last notes to die, E.V. graciously escorted Miss Leonard back to her father and met three other bachelors waiting, he hoped, to ask the slender blond to dance. Harvey Milton, Reverend Bollen’s middle son David—the one E.V. long suspected of harboring feelings for Miss Leonard—and Frederick’s new brother-in-law Jake Pearson immediately began complimenting Miss Leonard. She did look nice in her odd-shade-of-red (or maybe pink) gown. Larkin would know the exact color. Men needed wives so they didn’t need to know these types of things.

  As abruptly as the compliments began, the three men facing Miss Leonard fell silent, their gazes shifting from her confused expression to something E.V. would have to turn around to see. Harvey’s mouth gaped a bit. Jake stood taller. David though, seemed to recover himself and looked longingly at Miss Leonard, who stepped closer to her father and, E.V. could’ve sworn, whispered, “Do something, Daddy.”

  Before E.V. could turn and look, Mr. Leonard clenched E.V.’s arm. “Renier, we need to talk.”

  At the harshness of Leonard’s tone, E.V. felt a ripple of tension center between his eyebrows. He didn’t mind helping Silas Leonard secure a husband for his oldest daughter, but his feet were aching, his mouth parched, and stomach rumbling, and if the barn grew any warmer from the body heat of all the wedding guests, he’d have to shed the black tailored coat he’d used his last bit of savings to purchase two years ago to wear to Larkin’s birthday party in hopes of attracting her attention. Still, he needed the contract, and if Leonard wanted to talk, E.V. would listen.

  He opened his mouth, intent on uttering his well-practiced “yes sir,” when the sweetest voice he’d yearned to hear say, “Yes, I’ll marry you,” broke the taut silence.

  “Mr. Renier, might I have a word?”

  E.V. found his breath and turned to Larkin, now standing close enough for him to pull her into his arms for a lengthy kiss. Loose strands of her black hair caressed the sides of her high cheekbones. He ached to pin them back into the neat and tidy bun she always wore underneath a hat she was forever taking off and forgetting. Whenever she smiled—and he prayed she wouldn’t at this moment, for his sake—the dimples on the sides of her mouth testified she’d inherited all the beauty of her part-Chinook mother and the whimsy of her Irish-English father.

  Everything about her took his breath away.

  “Daa—dee,” Miss Leonard whispered (more aptly, whined) again.

  “Yes, a word, Miss Whitworth,” E.V. blurted before Silas Leonard could make another demand. “We could speak over by the punch table.” He motioned that direction. “I could use a drink.” Remembering the contract he needed, he met Leonard’s intense gaze. “We won’t be but a moment, sir.”

  Larkin took a step then stopped. Her sweet-natured gaze settled on Miss Leonard. “Oh Abigail, cerise is certainly your color. You look lovely today.” Larkin then nodded at Jake, Harvey, and David to acknowledge their presence but spoke only to Jake. “Please express to the newlyweds my apologies for my parents’ absence. Mama …” She looked uneasy for a split-second. Then the corners of her mouth curved softly. “The wedding was delightful.”

  E.V. stepped to Larkin’s side, touched the small of her back in the most platonic manner he could possibly manage, and nudged her into walking before drawing his hand away from her. He focused on keeping the distance between them not too close to appear as anything but friends. When she would close the gap, he would ease to the left, keeping propriety in mind.

  Since she said nothing, he remained silent also as they wove through the wedding guests joining the line for another dance. Though Larkin was several inches shorter than Miss Leonard, he couldn’t—nor did he want to—shake the feeling that Larkin was perfectly made for him. To think their relationship began over a tray of cookies spilled by Miss Leonard’s brother.

  The words will you marry me? languished on the tip of his tongue. Only he couldn’t ask until he’d gained her father’s approval first. The Whitworth family honor was too important to them for E.V. to bring it any shame.

  They stopped at the refreshment table. Larkin filled a glass of punch, handed it to him, then picked up a plate and looked over the food offerings.

  Aware of how alone they were, yet at a public event, E.V. found himself admiring the curve of her neck and the finger-length strands of hair escaping from the bun, which seemed even blacker against the yellow and ivory stripes of her silky gown. He clenched the punch glass. He wasn’t going to touch her.
Wasn’t. Not even when the distance between them was less than an arm’s length.

  Was there anything in life he desired more than her?

  “I hope you like egg salad and smoked salmon.”

  E.V. blinked. “Ahhh …”

  “They seem to be the norm at weddings here in Tumwater,” Larkin continued, “which is why I intend on having something totally different when we—umm, when I marry.” Her head tilted to the left as she looked up at him, and her mouth curved enough for him to see hints of her dimples. “Were you paying attention to me?”

  To her words, not so much.

  To her, absolutely.

  And he felt as much irritation as joy in being this close to her.

  Understanding exactly how a parched man viewing an oasis felt, E.V. downed his punch. Two years of waiting. Two years of once-a-week marriage requests and immediate rejections. Two years of answering even the most obscure question about his family while enduring reminders of his father’s failure from Larkin’s father. E.V. had been steadfast, resolute, and patient. By remembering his sinful nature was dead and Christ now lived through him, he could endure as long as needed. The reward was too great to give up now.

  The prize—Larkin—was too precious to lose.

  “You wished to speak to me?” he asked as the musicians began another tune. Immediately he regretted the exasperated sound of his tone. Since he couldn’t explain to her the struggle between his honor and his desires, he simply mumbled, “Sorry. Please, go on.”

  “Yes.” Looking unsure of herself, she took the punch glass and gave him a plate of finger-sized sandwiches. “E.V., I know we—you—well, at least I felt there was something special between—” She broke off, and her gaze shifted as if to see who was watching them.

  E.V. glanced to his right and groaned.

  Miss Leonard strode purposely toward them, her progress occasionally halted by couples exchanging partners in the brisk dance.

  Larkin touched his wrist, drawing his attention. “Do you remember when Reverend Bollen preached about prayer the Sunday before Thanksgiving?” she rushed out.