Caroline Lee's Christmas Collection: Six sweet historical western romances

by Caroline Lee

  “I love you, Pearl.”

  When he lowered his lips to hers, she felt her worries and fears melting away. This is where I belong. Here, in this home, with this man. This was her future, and she was blessed to have a man who didn’t care about her past.

  When they pulled apart, she was disappointed, but he dropped another kiss on her nose.

  “I love you.”

  Her eyes widened in mock surprise. “That was four! Four times in one day?” she teased.

  “Well,” he drawled, his smile growing, “it is our wedding day. I’m willing to make exceptions.”

  Our wedding day.

  “I love you, Gilder Draven.”

  “Enough to promise never to tell anyone my first name?”

  Laughing, she threw her arms around his middle. “I love you enough to promise you anything you want!”

  “Good.”

  He scooped her up into his arms, and she squealed as he strode for the door. “Then let’s head on down to the saloon so the reverend can marry us for real, and we can come back here and continue what we started earlier.”

  She was smiling when she wrapped her arms around his neck. “What? Our kiss?” She wouldn’t mind continuing that later.

  “No.” He smiled down at her. “Our forevers.”

  The full list of books from The Twelve Days of Christmas Mail-Order Brides series can be found HERE.

  For those of you who thought Draven sounded familiar, that’s because he appeared in my gender-bending fairy tale spoof, The Prince’s Pea. Check out what he’s been up to, and how a case of mistaken identity—someone who looked enough like him to fool a mob!—lands one hero in hot water in this fun reimagined fairy tale.

  If you’ve enjoyed Draven and Pearl’s Christmas romance, I urge you to friend me on Facebook or follow me on Bookbub. I frequently post fun stories, links to great books, and cute animal pictures.

  If you’d like to keep up with my books, read deleted scenes, or receive exclusive free books, sign up for my newsletter.

  And if newsletters aren’t your thing, come join my reader group, Caroline’s Cohort!

  Do you like reading historical westerns, and like hanging out with others who do too? Join us on the Pioneer Hearts Facebook page, where we have the most wonderful discussions, contests, and updates about new books!

  Dying to find out who the next couple is in our Twelve Days of Christmas Mail-Order Brides series? Here’s a letter from the bride in The Goose: the Sixth Day.

  Dear Mr. Thornton,

  I received your letter today, and I am truly looking forward to traveling to Noelle and meeting you in person. Mrs. Walters has told the brides about Noelle, and it sounds like a pleasant town to settle. You expressed some concern about my adjusting to the remoteness of the Colorado mountains, but I can assure you that this will not present a problem. I am quite used to living a simple life and prefer the country to the hustle and bustle of a large city.

  Knowing that you used to be a miner gives us a common ground. My father was a gold prospector in the Montana Territory. When my mother passed away about seven years ago, my father gave up prospecting and we settled in Virginia City, the capitol of the territory. With the recent passing of my father, it is time for me to find a new place to call home. His last wish was that I find a good man to marry.

  Your ranch sounds absolutely wonderful, and I believe it will be the right fit for me. I was very pleased to find out that you have a great affinity for animals, and especially horses. I, too, love animals, and have a pet of my own. I know he will thrive on a ranch as opposed to living in town. The move from Montana Territory to Colorado has upset him somewhat, but I am confident that he will settle in right away on the ranch, as will I. I look forward to our meeting, and count the days until Christmas Eve.

  Yours truly,

  Molly Norris

  This series is so much fun, and I know you’ll enjoying finding out how Storm Thornton takes to Molly’s “pet” as much as I did! Click here to get The Goose: the Sixth Day!

  Or, if you’d rather start from the beginning, you can read the first mail-order bride story, The Partridge by Kit Morgan, here.

  The full series can be found here.

  Where They Belong

  The (inaccurately named) Sweet Cheyenne Quartet, book 6

  About this book

  Small-town girl Annie Murray is excited about the adventure of a grand coming-out season in New York City over the holidays, but it doesn’t take long to realize that the offer isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Annie is deaf, and has spent years changing herself—how she communicates—to fit in with “proper” society. She’s even learned to speak, for goodness’ sake! But the only thing these people seem to care about is how different she sounds, and it’s darned galling to know that she is still not acceptable. In fact, the only person in New York who tries to make her feel comfortable at all is Dr. Reginald Carderock.

  Reggie knows what it’s like to feel like you don’t belong someplace. He was born and raised among the Fifth Avenue elite, but is only barely tolerated these days. His friends and family don’t understand how he can spend all of his time treating the city’s poor at his clinic, or what he could possibly see in his brother’s little deaf student. But the more time he spends in Annie’s company, the more intrigued he is by her strength, determination, and compassion.

  Just when the two of them figure they’ve reached an understanding, they get the worst possible news from Annie’s family in Cheyenne. Now they’re stuck together in a mad dash across the country, dreading what they’ll find at the end. It’s a crummy way to spend Christmas Eve, and Reggie knows that he might lose her forever when they reach their destination. He’ll need to figure out a way to show her that he can see her for who she truly is.

  Which is good, because all she wants for Christmas is for him to hear the words she’s not saying.

  For the staff at

  George Mason University’s

  Helen A. Kellar Institute for Human disAbilities,

  who every day teach people to be

  more understanding and accepting.

  Prologue

  Once Upon A Time…

  Fifteen years ago, a young woman came west from Chicago, looking for work to support herself and her two younger sisters. Molly Murray was hired by a down-on-his-luck rancher who offered her room and board in exchange for keeping his house. Ash Barker quickly came to treasure Molly, and the way she made Christmas special for his teenaged brother Nate… and himself. When the two younger Murray sisters arrived in their lives—including seven-year-old Annie—the five of them became a family, and their first Christmas together was very special indeed.

  Wendy and Nate became good friends despite a rocky beginning, and they soon all settled in, learning the “sign language” the sisters had created for little deaf Annie. Their neighbor Serena Selkirk came into their lives, teaching the younger Murray sisters to dream big. Five years after they’d settled in Cheyenne, after the birth of Molly and Ash’s second son, Wendy decided to follow her dreams and travel to St. Louis to teach and write. Nate missed her, but wanted her to be happy, and so he devoted himself to exchanging letters with her.

  Change came to Cheyenne with the arrival of a sophisticated schoolteacher from New York City. It turned out that Sebastian Carderock III wasn’t just a brilliant oralist and mathematician, but wealthy as well. He was the prince that Serena had been waiting for, and she chose him over her neighbor, Cam McLeod. But the following year, Cam got his own Happily Ever After when he rescued a lovely woman and her son. It only took a bit of convincing before they were a family, and Cam’s father was stepping out with Serena’s aunt.

  Finally, Nate had enough with all of the romance going on around him, and decided to find out where he stood with Wendy, and why she hadn’t written him back in two years. Right before Christmas—almost exactly eight years after meeting her—he arrived in St. Louis. He managed to get her fired, learned her terrible sec
ret, and convinced her that she was worth loving after all. For her part, Wendy had her work cut out convincing the once-shy half-Indian boy she’d come to love that he was worthy of love too.

  Through all of these romances and adventures, Annie watched supportively. She’d blossomed at the ranch, being given the care and training of the colts, and had helped build their reputation and business. Once she’d begun school in the city, she lived with Sebastian and Serena, and joined her friend in her charitable work and social obligations. As she grew, she found a balance between life in the city, where she enjoyed the companionship of her friends, and life on the ranch, where she found comfort with her horses and love from her family. She was accepted. She was loved. She was understood.

  But years of Sebastian’s oralism training had readied her for the wider world. She could now communicate with more than just her family and close friends, who knew her sign language. She could go on her own adventures, and find her own romance.

  This is her story.

  Chapter 1

  New York City, December 1890

  The big luggage cart very nearly ran her over.

  She might have been gawking a bit, but that was to be expected; Grand Central Depot was huge. So much bigger than any of the train stations she’d been through to get here, and just incredible compared to Cheyenne’s. Of course, Cheyenne’s station was nothing like the covered platform it used to be, but it still couldn’t rival this masterpiece of height and space and human ingenuity.

  And the chaos! There were men in suits—real suits!—and little round hats hurrying back and forth, some with their noses buried in newspapers, and some gesturing animatedly to their companions. She could smell their sweat and taste their cigar smoke all around her. The men who worked for the railroad wore matching dark uniforms, and seemed content to ignore everyone as they waved and pointed and managed to organize the turmoil. There were even women; some unescorted like she was, some with families, and plenty with children. The acrid rush of steam from the far end of the Depot told Annie that a train had just whistled, and she could feel the pulse of the machine through her boots.

  The Depot was so overwhelming, and no surprise that Annie didn’t see the luggage cart the two porters pushed until it was almost too late. They’d probably been yelling at her to get out of the way, which might have worked had Annie been able to hear them. She couldn’t hear any of the shouts, the whistles, the calls and the humanity that she knew must be loud around her. The noise must’ve been even worse than the chaos, and she was almost glad to be deaf… but she wouldn’t have minded hearing some warning of the approaching luggage cart.

  But as it happened, she needn’t have worried. Right as she turned into the path of the lumbering behemoth on wheels, and realized what was about to happen, a hand tightened around her wrist and yanked her out of danger. She smacked into a hard chest, her breath leaving her lungs in one great whoosh as warm arms wrapped around hers to steady her.

  Barely a moment of contact, and then her mysterious rescuer stepped back and she saw his smile and knew he wasn’t so mysterious after all. He was the one she was supposed to have been looking for, instead of standing there beside the platform gaping at the sights like the country bumpkin she was. Apparently, he’d found her instead.

  “Glad I got to you in time, Miss Murray.” The twinkle in his chocolate-brown eyes told her that his tone had been teasing. She’d lost the ability to hear at age three, after a bout with the German measles, but she’d always been good at understanding someone from their lip movement. Sebastian’s oralism training had taught her to understand the sounds that those lips were making, and to attempt to reproduce them. She’d never heard herself speak, but could feel the sounds behind her ears.

  “Hello, Reggie.” The R sound was hard for her, and had driven Wendy nuts trying to explain it. Annie still wasn’t sure if she’d mastered it, but Reggie’s smile told her that it didn’t matter.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. Thank you.” She swallowed, assuring herself that she wasn’t lying to him. He was asking if she was okay after her near-miss with the luggage cart, which she was. She didn’t have to confess that his smile made her knees weak—had for years—and that every time she inhaled she got a whiff of his appealing sandalwood scent.

  Reggie stepped back, his hands lingering on her upper arms as if unsure that she was capable of standing on her own, and that more than anything made Annie’s back straighten and her chin rise.

  She’d just come across most of the country on her own, against her family’s urging. She’d told them that she needed to prove that she could do it, and since she was a grown woman, they finally had to agree. There’d been close calls and misunderstandings along the way, but Annie had navigated her own way through the confusing transfers and negotiations, and by God, she’d made it—alone!—to New York City in one piece.

  …Only to be nearly run down by a piece of equipment. Some of the starch went out of her shoulders then, and she ventured a small smile in his direction. “Thank you for rescuing me.”

  “It was my pleasure.”

  He smiled again, and Annie’s breath caught. Oh goodness, he was… he was even handsomer than she remembered, but looked less like his older brother than he had during his last visit to Cheyenne. He was perfectly imperfect.

  Reggie Carderock had Sebastian’s dark hair, but it never managed to stay quite as well-coiffed as his brother’s. Even now a lock had fallen across his forehead, and Annie wondered where his hat had gone. His grin pushed all thoughts aside, and she had to stiffen her knees to keep herself upright. There was a little gap between his front two teeth, and between that and the dimple in the opposite cheek from his brother, she thought him much more approachable. Touchable, even, although she’d never admitted that to anyone besides herself, and only then in the darkest part of the night when she only had her dreams for company.

  And so her cheeks were burning when he offered her his arm, picked up her valise, and escorted her through the chaos and out into the slush of Vanderbilt Avenue, where a carriage waited. He helped her in, and then went to speak to the driver. Annie settled against the seat—much softer than the one she’d been sitting on for the last days—and watched his profile.

  She’d met him nine years ago, at the marriage of her dear friend Serena to Sebastian, the oralist schoolteacher who’d come to Cheyenne to teach Annie. Reggie had stood beside his older brother at the altar, and Annie had thought him the most charming man in the whole world. Of course, that was back when she was twelve and he was a layabout who lived on his father’s money. Since then, she’d learned to speak and now divided her time between her horses at the ranch and her obligations in Cheyenne. And he… well, every other year he visited Cheyenne, and she got to know him better. He wasn’t a layabout; he just had different goals than the rest of his family. She watched him talk about medical school and the work he was now doing at the clinic for the workers of New York, and found more and more things to admire about him.

  And then his mother had written to Sebastian to offer to sponsor “his little deaf friend” for a season in New York. It was an amazing opportunity, and one that Annie would be foolish to pass up. At least, that’s what Serena had said, and Wendy had agreed. Annie’s sister had spent a few years among the “high society folks”—as she called them—in St. Louis, and thought that it was important for a young woman to see something of the world. In fact, she’d looked a little disappointed that she couldn’t go too, just for the adventure; but she was due to have her baby within the month, and Nate rarely let her out of his sight. Their oldest sister Molly was the one who objected so fervently, but since she also objected to Annie traveling alone, the younger woman assumed it was just Molly being overprotective. But now, having to crane her neck to see the tops of some of the buildings here, Annie was beginning to think that maybe her sister had been right when she’d warned her how different things were in the East.

  Reggie climbed in
beside her, gave a little smile, and the carriage started with the slightest of lurches. It had been a bit of a relief to see that the “automobile” craze Nate was always talking about wasn’t quite as widespread as she’d feared, and that Reggie’s carriage was pulled by a pair of beautiful matching gray mares. She’d almost stopped to pet them, but then remembered that here, in the city, she couldn’t stop to make friends with random horses. She had to be proper. Well… more proper, at least.

  She wanted to know all about the sights they were passing—she’d read about the city on the train—but instead turned towards Reggie expectantly. He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again. Oh dear. Did he not remember that she could understand his words by watching his lips? It wasn’t easy—had taken years of practice—and Annie had to concentrate, but it was the best way to communicate with people who could hear. They often slurred their words together, and she missed many of them, but was able to get the general gist of their statement. It wasn’t easy, but it worked.

  As if knowing that speaking wasn’t her first choice of communication, Reggie reached into the pocket formed between the cushion and the wall, and pulled out a notebook. He’d brought a notebook. He’d thought to bring a notebook?

  Reggie Carderock was turning out to be a delightful surprise.

  We’re going to my parents’ house now.

  His scrawl was as bold and masculine as he was, and made Annie smile to see it. She would always be more comfortable communicating in writing, or sign, and Reggie thinking to bring a notebook made her all warm inside. Of course she had her own notebook—she would never have dreamed of traveling across the country alone without having a ready means of communication—but she loved that he’d thought of it as well. She took the pencil when he offered it.