Kiowa shut the shop door and Nolan crawled up in the wagon seat. Now it was time to talk to Holly.
“I don’t think you should see Holly yet. She barely ate anything for dinner and went back to her room after washing dishes,” Mack stood sentinel at the parsonage’s front door. Nolan should have walked in the back door without knocking as he usually did, but he was trying to be proper calling on Holly. And calling for Holly wouldn’t happen if he couldn’t get past the four Reagan brothers standing shoulder to shoulder in the doorway.
“You’re taking this ‘protecting your little sister’ pretty seriously, aren’t you.”
“Yep,” all four answered together.
“As I’ve explained to Mary, my grandparents, and Kiowa Jones...and now to you four bodyguards...I was planning my future with Holly when I hinted to my grandparents about living arrangements. They took it wrong, thinking I was going to ask Mary to be my wife instead.”
“Let him in the door so we can get the story straight this time,” Nolan heard Kaitlyn say somewhere behind her sons.
“Wait until I take off my boots. I’m in enough trouble as it is,” Nolan said before taking a step in the door.
“So what do you plan to make amends, Nolan?” Kaitlyn questioned him. Luckily she believed it was all a sad misunderstanding after he explained everything to the Reagans.
“If you’d talk her into going out with me, I’d like to drive her over to Fort Harker. Maybe she’d like to play some Christmas songs at the cemetery?”
“Good plan. I’ll have her downstairs in a few moments. Grab the heated bricks by the stove to keep your feet warm in the wagon. There’s an extra blanket in the parlor you can take along, too.”
Nolan waited, along with the five Reagan men, without saying anything. They all hated Holly was upset, especially when it was Christmas. Could Nolan turn Holly’s day into a joyous one? Only time and apologies could tell.
“Hello, Nolan.” Holly’s hoarse voice saddened Nolan, knowing he’d caused her so much pain. It also filled him with hope, because it meant Holly must truly love him, too, to be so brokenhearted. Her life would change for the better this afternoon, if she accepted his apology and explanation.
“Merry Christmas, Holly. Thank you for seeing me today. I thought you’d like to take a drive out to the cemetery to play for your family?”
“Yes, thank you, I appreciate your thoughtfulness.” So formal, so polite and so sad.
“Well, let’s be on our way then.”
Seth opened the door and everyone followed him and Holly to the wagon, being sure Holly was safe for her trip.
“I promise I’ll have Holly back by suppertime.” Nolan said with a nod, knowing there would be a posse looking for him if they were late getting back to the parsonage.
“Holly, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” Nolan started as soon as they were out of town, but Holly put up her gloved hand to stop him.
“Let’s just enjoy the quiet white scenery until we reach the cemetery, please?”
Nolan nodded, listening to the horse’s hooves crunching the crusted snow and watching his breath puff white clouds in the cold air. Nolan’s first word was ‘whoa’ to the horse as they stopped by the edge of the cemetery, closest to Holly’s family’s graves.
After he set the wagon brake and wrapped the reins around it, Nolan jumped off and came around to Holly.
“I need you to find the stone piles again. The last snow covered them up.”
“Why?”
Nolan didn’t answer as he reached to help her down to the ground. Then he went to the back of the wagon and pulled away the tarp which covered the tools and markers.
He carefully lifted out a three-foot metal cross from the back of the wagon and held it up to show Holly.
“I had Kiowa make cross markers for your family graves. We need to find the stones and set these in the ground.”
Holly gasped, then covered her mouth with her hands as she started to sob. Nolan wasn’t surprised by her reaction, knowing it would bring grief, but also peace once the shock wore off. Nolan set the cross against the wheel and opened his arms to comfort Holly. It took a while for her to pull away, but her big sighing breath told Nolan she’d be okay.
“I have two crosses for your mother and Ruth, and a small cross for your baby sister. I also had Kiowa make one for your father. You can either place it in this cemetery or I’ll find a way to deliver it to Morgan’s Crossing, your choice.”
“Thank you, Nolan. You can’t realize how much this means to me.” Nolan watched her wipe her eyes and nose with her gloved hand.
“I can guess, because I’d hate for my parent’s graves not to have markers on them. Let me get the markers in the ground, then you can play if you want.”
Nolan reached for the pick axe, shovel and the first cross as Holly walked to her sister’s grave and stood beside it.
It took a while to get the holes as deep as he wanted them in the frozen ground, but three new crosses marked the graves now, finally giving the cemetery the feeling of a sacred resting place again.
“I’d like father’s cross put on his grave.”
“That’s a good idea. We’ll take it back home for now.
“Play as long as you want, then we need to talk, Holly.”
Nolan stood by the horse as Holly played about every Christmas carol she could think of, or until her fingers were too cold to play, anyway. He waited until the violin was safely back in its case and the blankets wrapped around them before taking Holly’s hands in his own.
“I had hoped you would be anticipating this moment, as I had been planning it, but I blew it. I’m so sorry for not making myself clear, Holly...”
“Don’t! I was a fool to think you’d want me.”
“Let me finish my sentence. It’s very important. I’m sorry for not making myself clear to my grandparents that I was going to ask you to marry me. They assumed it was Mary because of our past.”
“What?”
“Miss Holly Elizabeth Brandt, I love you. Could I have the honor of being your husband? I promise on Pastor Reagan’s long list of vows that I will try to be the best husband—and the best father to our children—as I possibly can.
“Why?” Holly looked dumbstruck at his question.
“Again, because I love you. You’re the most beautiful woman, inside and out, I’ve ever met, and I want to share my life with you.”
“But everybody thinks you’re marrying Mary.”
“So far I’ve told Mary, my grandparents, Kiowa—and all the Reagan’s—that I was going to ask for your hand in marriage this afternoon. That means the rest of the town will know of our engagement before we’re back to town.”
“Yes, news does get around Clear Creek rather fast.”
“So, are you ready to go back to town to celebrate our upcoming nuptials?”
“Nolan, I never thought I’d meet such a wonderful man as you, who would actually look twice at me.”
“I looked more than twice at you on that first day. I thank God every day for the snowstorm which stopped the train in Sweetwater Springs.
“Now may I kiss you to seal our engagement?”
“There’s no kissing ball around.”
“I think from here on out we won’t need one anymore. I plan to kiss you as often as I can, just for the pure pleasure of kissing my wife.”
Epilogue
December 31, 1885
Holly was so thankful for the welcoming arms of Kaitlyn and Pastor—and her adopted brothers—when they returned to town on Christmas Day. Her first family may be buried, but her second family would always be there when she needed a hug, a laugh, or a prayer.
Today, on her twenty-first birthday, the Reagan’s love—and most of the townspeople—surrounded her again as Holly and Nolan stood in front of the church altar facing Pastor Reagan. Seth, Mack, Cullen and Tully Reagan stood solemnly to the right of Nolan. Iva Mae, Maridell, Avalee and Luella Paulson stood smiling t
o her left.
Kaitlyn had seriously played the role of “mother of the bride” as they planned their wedding. Kiowa was honored to walk her down the aisle of the church as her honorary cousin.
At Nolan’s request, she wore Iva Mae’s garnet red gown again, which reminded Nolan of the first time he’d seen her at Fort Ellis on Christmas Day, 1878. It was hard to imagine that their chance meeting seven years later would lead to their marriage.
It gave Holly great comfort knowing that her father and Nolan had known each other. Her father would have approved of their marriage. After all, he was the one who pointed Holly out to Nolan, reminding him to protect her in the first place.
“Nolan please take Holly’s hands and repeat after me,” Pastor Reagan instructed while giving each of them a serious look.
“Nolan, will you have this woman to be your wife; to live together with her in the covenant of marriage? Will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, be faithful unto her as long as you both shall live?”
“I will,” Nolan stated with a clear, strong voice.
Nolan slid a thin gold band on her left ring finger and then squeezed her hand as he said, “Holly, I give you this ring as a symbol of my love, and with all that I am, and all that I have, I honor you, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
“Holly, now it’s your turn to repeat the vows.”
“Holly, will you have this man to be your husband; to live together with him in the covenant of marriage? Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, be faithful unto him as long as you both shall live?”
Holly stood straight and proud as she stated to Nolan, “I will.”
Nolan had proved to her, time and again, that she could always count on him to be true and faithful to her, and their families, past, current, and future.
Nolan was a groom of honor…
~*~*~*~
I hope you enjoyed Nolan and Holly’s story. Please keep reading to see how life in Clear Creek, Kansas, began with Rania Ropes a Rancher, the first book in the Brides with Grit series.
A sweet historical romance set in 1873. Rania Hamner and her family emigrated from Sweden fourteen years ago to work on a Texas ranch, working cattle and herding them up the Chisholm Trail. Something in her life on the trail caused her to doubt her worth, and her ability to trust a man enough to become his wife. Once the family buys a homestead in Kansas, she meets a rancher who begins to make her believe she can trust and fall in love after all.
Rancher Jacob Wilerson noticed Rania last year when she rode drag behind a herd of longhorns—right down Main Street of Ellsworth, Kansas. He’s been waiting for her family to return this spring with another Texas herd to the booming cowtown, because he hopes to rope her into staying permanently on his ranch—the way she had already roped his heart.
When Rania's past attacks with new danger, she decides to fight for all she's worth because she realizes she wants to be with Jacob forever.
When Jacob realizes Rania is in danger, he rushes to save her, whether or not she still loves him, hoping to rope Rania—his heart—once more, as she has roped his.
Prologue
May 2, 1872, Ellsworth, Kansas
Jacob Wilerson stood on the dusty boardwalk on the north side of South Main in Ellsworth, marveling at how the town had changed in the five years since the town’s birth. Wooden buildings of all sizes and shapes, mostly with false fronts, mixed in with a few brick establishments like the bank on the corner. The Ellsworth Café. Miller’s Livery. Homestead Hotel. Bold painted signs hanging above the business door or painted on the front of the buildings. The first businesses sprang up overnight in tents and shacks. Some of them are long gone, but other businesses have taken their space. The dirt streets—once an original carpet of prairie grass—varies from muddy ruts, hard-packed snow and ice, to hot powdery dust, depending on the weather conditions and time of year.
There wasn’t a tree in sight; buildings just cropped up on the prairie with the wide-open sky as a backdrop.
Jacob was fourteen, ten years ago, when his folks brought their young family out to the virgin prairie of the Kansas Territory to escape the Civil War. He and his older brother Adam and younger sibling, Noah, each a year apart from Jacob, were at the age they would soon be pulled into the war if they didn’t leave civilization behind.
They left Illinois and kept traveling west, past the Kansas and Missouri border problems, to central Kansas. His father Moses filed a claim on homestead land between the Clear Creek and the Smoky Hill River, two miles south of the Butterfield Overland Route that ran from Kansas City to Denver. But within a few years, forts were established along this same route to handle the Indian uprisings. Fort Harker was built two miles west of their claim and Ellsworth five miles further west. Now their peaceful, private prairie teemed with businesses, people and more cattle than a person could ever imagine—because now the railroad traveled across the prairie too, bringing civilization with it.
Of course his family had changed, too. Adam was now the marshal for the little town called Clear Creek north of their ranch. Adam said he was never going to marry because of his chosen profession. Noah homesteaded the land next to his parents and was writing to a girlfriend back in Illinois.
Jacob had taken charge of the original land when his father died three years ago. His mother Cate and sister Sarah still lived with him. He was marrying age, twenty-four, but hadn’t met the right woman yet to take on ranch life.
Jacob didn’t mind being close to towns and supplies. It made life easier, and hopefully would bring more women and families this way. Even though the extra cattle that the drives brought up each spring brought good income to town, it also brought noise, smell and ruckus when herds—and cowboys—got riled.
The herds grazed south of town and used the river as their water source, until it was time to load them onto the trains heading to the Eastern states. Groups were brought across the river and down the street to the pens and chutes that would load the animals onto railroad cars.
Right now the noise—and dust level—rose as a new herd trotted right down South Main Street. Everyone scattered out of the street when they heard the rhythm of the hooves hitting the packed dirt heading for the rail yards. It was beginning to be an everyday occurrence as thirty thousand head of cattle were expected to arrive and ship out of Ellsworth over the next few months. That’s a lot of dust, mud and manure.
Abilene was once the main cowtown, but drovers switched to Ellsworth this year as the train tracks went farther west now, and the Abilene businessmen and area ranchers were tired of the giant herds and Texas Fever cattle disease that encompassed Dickinson County spring through fall. There were around forty thousand cattle shipped out of Abilene last year, and Jacob couldn’t fathom that many longhorns roaming around Ellsworth County this summer—but they were starting to arrive.
The cattle streamed past Jacob’s view in a river of dust and color, kept in line by the front leader and side riders. A group of ten cowboys could handle a twenty-five hundred head herd, and so far Jacob had counted six riders. Foot and wagon traffic was put on hold for several minutes, and horses tied to the hitching posts along the edges of the boardwalks crowded up against the posts, warily watching the horns as they passed.
As the last of the herd went alongside, Jacob noticed the cowboy riding drag. As the dust thinned, Jacob saw a split skirt on the rider instead of trousers. It was unusual to see a woman riding drag, but she appeared confident and capable in the job.
Actually, all he saw of the woman on the side facing him was a thick layer of dried mud coating her body and the horse’s. It looked as though she and her palomino paint took a wild slide down the river bank while herding the livestock across the river. Between her wide-brimmed hat pushed low on her forehead, and a bandana covering her face, Jacob couldn’t even see her eyes. When the woman pa
ssed, he saw a waist-length blonde braid down her back—and even it was muddy.
Jacob snapped his head down the walk as a woman screamed and yelled to someone who was between the two of them. A longhorn bull had done a quick right turn, heading straight to the boardwalk, and toward a frightened child, who was stock still and staring at the giant animal.
Before Jacob could run down the twenty feet to the little boy, the horsewoman trailing the herd, snapped a lasso through the air which landed around the six-foot spread of the bull’s horns. She yanked the rope back hard with her right, gloved hand at the same time her horse jumped backwards, snapping the animal’s head back from its disastrous route. Both bull and boy were bawling at once, but the horse and rider just pulled the animal back onto the route of the herd, like it was an everyday occurrence. The woman was attuned to the livestock, but she also saw the child in danger in an instant, and took care of both.
Now that’s the kind of wife he needed, someone who could ride, rope, handle livestock and children—a woman with grit—and Jacob wondered if this particular one was married or single.
Rania Ropes a Rancher is FREE and available now.
~*~*~*~
Dear Reader:
Thank you so much for reading Nolan’s Vow, the first book in my new Grooms with Honor series. This book starts in Debra Holland’s Montana Sky Kindle World setting of Sweetwater Springs, and then the characters travel to the fictional town of Clear Creek, Kansas—first used in my Brides with Grit series.
The series setting is based on the old cowtown of Ellsworth, Kansas—famous for its cattle drive history—and nearby Fort Harker. The fictional town of Clear Creek is based on the many little towns that sprang up as the railroad was built across Kansas, and is set in the current area of Kanopolis State Park. I live nearby and have hiked the park’s trails, where the landscape remains the same, making it easy to visualize what the area looked like in 1885.
For more information on all my series, please visit www.LindaHubalek.com, or ask your favorite retailer or library to order them for you. Although each book is a standalone, I recommend reading them in order to get full benefit of the story.
Montana Sky: Nolan's Vow (Kindle Worlds) (Grooms with Honor Book 0) Page 19
