Western Winter Wedding Bells

by Cheryl St. John, Jenna Kernan

  Rachel needed no further explanation. Cooper probed everyone he met about the scarred man.

  “Go on, Rachel,” Cooper said. “Get your business done.”

  Robert helped her down from the wagon. He held her a little too close and too long for her liking. She pulled away as soon as her boots touched the ground, straightening her gown. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Cooper shoot Robert a cool glare, and Rachel’s mood immediately lifted.

  Once her bank business had concluded, Robert insisted on escorting her back outside. He didn’t try to conceal his frown when he found Cooper standing beside the wagon with Johnny in his arms, waiting.

  “I’ll take it from here.” Cooper smiled at Robert. “We have one more stop before we head home.”

  An awkward moment passed, and then Robert bade her farewell, wishing her a Merry Christmas.

  Rachel’s heart lurched. If only Cooper meant it. If only the Double J was truly his home. Yet, she couldn’t help but be encouraged by his bout of jealousy.

  As they rode farther into town, Rachel noted Cooper’s eyes darting from one establishment to another, his gaze honing in on every rider, every male walking along the sidewalk. He was a hawk, searching for his prey.

  “This shouldn’t take long,” she said, once they crossed town to the Cedar Creek Mercantile. “I’ll drop off these extra scarves and socks to Mr. Woodcock. And while I’m there I’ll get us some candies for Christmas.”

  “Mmm, candy,” Johnny said. “Candy, Mama.”

  Rachel chuckled. “I know, sweetness. You be good for Cooper and I’ll bring you a licorice stick.”

  “I be good,” her eager boy said with a big grin.

  Rachel bounded down from the wagon without Cooper’s aid this time and grabbed a basket of her knitted ware. She walked inside the shop and Mr. Woodcock greeted her kindly. “Nice to see you, Miss Rachel. I dare say you have perfect timing.”

  She sent the shop owner a smile. “How’s that, Mr. Woodcock?”

  “Well, Mr. Brown, just right now, stopped in looking for a new scarf.”

  “Oh, that is good timing.” Rachel set down her basket on the counter, giving Mr. Brown a cursory look. He was a contradiction, she thought, wearing fine clothes, but his hair was overly long and his beard scruffy. The black scarf around his neck was shabby and ready to be replaced. “Would you like to try one of color?” she asked. “I have light brown or how about this gray one?” She lifted both for him to see.

  “Thanks, ma’am.” He took the darker one and removed his old scarf in a hurry to try the gray one she handed him.

  That’s when she noticed his neck. His scarred neck!

  Rachel’s heart raced, pounding against her chest so hard she very nearly swayed right there by the counter. She disguised her panic and concealed her inspection of his face. From this close, she noticed red slashes on the left side, under his beard. As he wrapped her scarf around his neck, his hair shoved aside and that was when she knew for sure she was looking into the eyes of Brett Hollings, the man who’d killed Cooper’s family.

  “I’ll take two,” he said quietly to Mr. Woodcock.

  She froze. Time seemed to stop. Somewhere in her mind she realized Hollings had cast her a strange look before moving to the back of the store in need of other items.

  “Rachel?” Mr. Woodcock called out. “Rachel, dear. Are you ill?”

  Rachel blinked, then looked at him, her body trembling. “N-no.” Her mind muddled for another second, then barely able to say the words, she breathed out, “I have to go.”

  She exited the shop in a stupor and stood woodenly on the sidewalk. Seconds ticked by. She knew she couldn’t hide this from Cooper, but everything inside her screamed with dread.

  Slowly, she walked to the wagon. Cooper was playing a tickling game with Johnny. Her boy’s giggles broke her spell. She climbed up on the wagon and sat down beside Cooper.

  “Ready to leave?” he asked, his smile broad.

  Yes. She could tell him to leave. She could go home with him and keep him safe. But his search would never end. He’d move on eventually. He’d go from town to town, drifting, seeking justice and a way to redeem himself from the guilt that plagued him. Rachel couldn’t deceive him. But oh, how she wanted to.

  “Rachel?” he asked, finally noticing her state. “You’re white as a sheet.”

  She turned to him, her mind made up and her heart breaking. “Cooper, listen to me. You’re a good man. A decent man. I know it in my heart. I love you. Truly and wholly, I love you. We can be a family. Together. The three of us. If you do the right thing. If you just let the law—”

  “Rachel, honey, what are you talking about?” He appeared puzzled, but there was softness in his eyes. For her. Could it be that he loved her?

  “Hollings.” She squeezed her eyes shut.

  “What about Hollings?” His tone immediately changed and she snapped her eyes open.

  “I think he’s inside the mercantile. I saw a man with burns on the left side of his face and neck. He’s…scarred.”

  Cooper’s expression shifted. His eyes grew cold. The angles of his face tightened. Everything she knew of Cooper Garnett had instantly changed. He reached in the back of the buckboard and withdrew a shotgun.

  “Take the boy and go home, Rachel.”

  “Cooper, no. I’m not leaving.”

  Cooper jumped down from the wagon and handed her the reins. “You don’t want to be here. You don’t want to see what I’m about to do.”

  Tears sprang from her eyes. “Cooper, please.”

  He shook his head. “Once it’s done, I’ll head back to Nevada. Pick up the pieces of my sorry life. I won’t be worthy of you. You won’t want to know me.”

  “That’s not true!”

  His stern voice lent no room for argument. “I swear I don’t want you in the middle of this. Take Johnny and leave.” He glanced at Johnny and then shot her a long look with regret darkening his eyes. “This is goodbye, Rachel. Now go.”

  Rachel’s hands trembled, but she managed to hold on to the reins and click them once. The wagon lurched forward. Cooper stood there and watched her drive away.

  The last thing she heard was the cocking of his Winchester rifle.

  Rachel couldn’t hold her despair inside too much longer. It was all she could do to drive her team to the Double J without breaking down completely. She’d shushed Johnny so many times on the ride that he’d finally just lain across her lap and quieted. The minute she reached home, she handed a befuddled Johnny over to Chick then ran straight into Jess’s arms. The poor man had just come out of the barn when she’d thrown herself at him, sobbing.

  Between broken cries, she explained what had happened in town. Jess held her tight and consoled her. “It’ll be all right, missy,” he whispered in her ear. “It’ll be all right.”

  “I can’t stomach it, Jess. I just can’t. Not again.” She rested her head on his chest, dampening his shirt with her tears.

  “I know. I know. But think on it this way. Cooper’s a capable man. He’s smart. He won’t put himself in harm’s way.”

  “You didn’t see the look on his face. Or in his eyes.” An uncontrollable shiver shook her. “I’ll never see him again.”

  “You don’t know that, missy. Have faith that he’ll get through it.”

  She’d shed a river of tears already, but they still kept coming. “Oh, how I pray he does. But he’s leaving anyway. He’s going back to Nevada. He says…” She gulped a breath of air. “He says he won’t be worthy of me. I won’t want to know him.”

  “C’mon, let’s get you inside. I’ll stay with you until you calm down.” She clung to Jess and together they walked to the house. Then a ray of hope entered her heart. “I hope Sheriff O’Reilly got there in time.”

  “Now, how’d the sheriff know anything?”

  “I went straight there after leaving Cooper. I couldn’t think of any other way to help.”

  “Well, then, maybe he did get th
ere in time.”

  Rachel nodded, feeling slightly better. “Maybe he did.”

  Half an hour later, Jess left her after she’d assured him that she would be all right. No amount of consoling could diminish the fear she held inside. No amount of cheering up would fill the void in her heart. She felt empty and hollowed out, the pain reminiscent of losing Josh. But the difference was, Cooper had had a choice in the path he chose.

  He could have walked away.

  He could have alerted the sheriff and allowed the law to decide Hollings’s fate.

  Instead, Cooper chose to take matters into his own hands.

  She’d confessed her love for him and it hadn’t mattered. Nothing she could have said would’ve stopped him. It hurt her terribly that his vengeance meant more to him than her love.

  She glanced at Johnny sitting on the rug by the fireplace, playing with a spool of yarn. She sat down next to him, stroking his fine silky hair. “You’ve got yourself all tangled,” she said quietly. She saw the glow of innocence in his eyes, the wonder and joy. She had Johnny to love and she was grateful to have him. She adored her son, but she wondered if it would always just be the two of them? Was she meant to live the rest of her life alone?

  She couldn’t fathom loving any other man. She loved Cooper. She would continue to love him, even as her life moved on. Even if a dozen Robert Livingstons came calling, she would turn them all away.

  “Sad, Mama?” Johnny looked up at her quizzically.

  “No, Mama’s not sad. It’s almost Christmas, Johnny,” she said as cheerily as she could muster. “We’ll have our celebration tomorrow. Want to help Mama make pie?”

  Johnny nodded, and she untangled the wool strands wrapped around his chubby hands. “C’mon,” she said, lifting him.

  She had no life left in her, but she went about the motions of her daily chores pretending to Johnny, Jess and herself that she could survive another tragic loss.

  Jess had checked on her during the day and later in the evening he brought her supper, a rich soup he’d prepared for the boys. He’d stayed and eaten the meal with her, sending her worried glances. It was all she could do to keep from breaking down again in front of him. The elderly man had become like a father to her. She didn’t want to cause him further alarm. Her pain would be met in the late hours of the night and in the hours before dawn when she didn’t have to disguise her anguish from peering eyes.

  “I’ll be back later,” Jess said as he rose to leave.

  “You don’t have to,” Rachel insisted.

  Jess smiled a sweet smile. “Indulge your elders, missy.”

  “You’ll tell me if you…if you hear anything?”

  His eyes wrinkled with uncertainty. “I doubt that’s gonna happen tonight. We won’t be getting word from town.”

  “Just promise you’ll tell me.”

  “You know I will,” he said before walking out the door.

  Drained of energy, Rachel put Johnny down to sleep early and sat by the fire in the main room staring at the licking flames until only embers burned. She got up to douse the fire completely, when Jess knocked on her door.

  The dear man was concerned about her.

  She tried pasting on a smile, but she knew she couldn’t fool him. She opened the door and gasped.

  Cooper stood on her threshold.

  She was so relieved to see him, she wanted to rush into his arms, but the hard look on his face stopped her cold.

  “Hollings is dead.”

  Rachel squeezed her eyes shut for a second, absorbing the truth. Any sliver of hope she had vanished in that instant. Dreadful emotions landed in her belly like a deadweight. She inhaled deeply and held her tears back. Thoughts raced through her head, but she couldn’t find the words.

  “I’m sorry, Rachel. For putting you through this.”

  She nodded slowly. Her limbs shaky, she leaned against the edge of the door for support.

  “I didn’t kill him.”

  Her eyes lifted to his, puzzled.

  “I couldn’t do it, Rachel. I went into that mercantile with every intention of murdering him. When I saw him, my blood ran cold. He didn’t recognize me right away and I could have shot him dead right there by the penny candies. But then something flashed in my head. I recalled the cold, ruthless look in Clyde Berkins’s eyes. The man who shot me and will probably hang for the offense, pretended no remorse when I saw him in that jail cell. He was a hard, unfeeling man. A man with no soul. And I knew if I shot Hollings in cold blood, I wouldn’t be much better than him. I didn’t want to be like him. Because of you. And what you mean to me.”

  Rachel’s mind swirled and another fraction of hope entered her heart. “But you said Hollings is dead. How did that—”

  “I took him in. I had the rifle pointed at his back as we walked toward the sheriff’s office. Two young boys got into a fistfight in the street. There was a lot of shouting and I got distracted for an instant. Just one second passed and Hollings wrestled the Winchester from my hands. He was ready to shoot me when Sheriff O’Reilly sent a round into his gut. Hollings died before he could get off a shot at me.”

  “Oh, Cooper.” Tears spilled from her eyes. “You could have died.”

  “But I didn’t, Rachel. And it’s because of you that I’m standing here. The sheriff told me what you did. How you went to him for help. You saved my life again.”

  Rachel trembled so much she thought she’d collapse. But Cooper was there instantly, bracing her shoulders, his strength seeping into her as he held her firm. “I rode out of town headed for Nevada, Rachel. But I didn’t have the strength to leave you like that. I doubled back and, well, here I am.”

  “Yes,” she said with a smile, her body beginning to recover from the shock. “Here you are.”

  Cooper’s dark eyes pierced hers with sincerity. “When Jocelyn died I didn’t think I could let anyone else into my heart. But then I met you, and it took me all this while to realize that I’ve been given a second chance. I love you, Rachel. I love you and Johnny so much, it tears me up inside to think of a life without you. You’ve healed my injuries, sweetheart, but you’ve also healed my heavy heart. You’ve saved my life twice now, but I’m greedy. I need you to save me once more.”

  “H-how?”

  “Marry me, Rachel. Let me love you until the day I die.”

  Rachel stared at him in wonder. Was it true? Cooper loved her and wanted to marry her. She swallowed hard and blinked several times. Sudden joy, the kind she thought she’d never experience again, the kind that makes you whole and fills you with happiness, washed over her. Her prayers answered, she moved closer to him, meeting his beautiful dark eyes. “Yes, yes. I’ll marry you, Cooper.”

  He brought her into a tight embrace. “I love you, Rachel.”

  “I’ll never tire of hearing it.”

  “You won’t have to,” he said. Tipping her head up to him, he brushed an exquisite lingering kiss to her lips, a kiss that spoke of long nights and bright futures. “I’ll tell you every day.”

  “Thank you, Cooper.”

  “You have nothing to thank me for, sweetheart.”

  “But I do. You said the other day that you wished you had a special gift for me. Giving us both this chance, a second chance at love, is the most precious Christmas gift I will ever receive.”

  Cooper grinned. “It’s going to be a special Christmas.”

  “Because we have each other.”

  “And Johnny,” Cooper said. “I want to help raise that boy.”

  Rachel’s heart swelled with happiness. “Josh would want that.”

  “And you?”

  “I couldn’t think of a better father for Johnny.”

  Cooper wrapped his arms around her shoulders and together they entered her house. “Welcome home, Cooper.”

  “Merry Christmas, sweetheart.”

  “It is. It’s the merriest day of my life.”

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-7004-0

  WESTERN WINTER WEDDING BEL
LS

  Copyright © 2010 by Harlequin Books S.A.

  The publisher acknowledges the copyright holders of the individual works as follows:

  CHRISTMAS IN RED WILLOW

  Copyright © 2010 by Cheryl Ludwigs

  THE SHERIFF’S HOUSEKEEPER BRIDE

  Copyright © 2010 by Jeannette H. Monaco

  WEARING THE RANCHER’S RING

  Copyright © 2010 by Charlene Swink

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