Holly: The Christmas Bride (The Brides of Paradise Ranch (Sweet Version) Book 9) Read online

  Holly’s focus snapped. She blinked rapidly, glancing to the sea of faces watching her in puzzled disbelief. Fuzzy prickles of shame broke out along her arms, numbing her hands, and she glanced down. This had been a terrible idea. She should have left well-enough alone, told Mrs. Breashears that she didn’t think George was a good match for her. But she couldn’t deny the way her heart had leapt when she’d heard his name. Ten years had passed like water under a bridge, but she hadn’t gone a day without thinking of George.

  “We can’t talk like this,” George murmured. He glanced around the platform, then grasped her by the elbow and led her through the people toward a small stationhouse in the center of the platform.

  To Holly’s surprise, people parted to let them through.

  “Well, this is highly irregular,” a broad-shouldered, somewhat bombastic man in a fine suit declared. The black-clad man—a preacher by the looks of him—standing beside him just humphed. Everyone else bubbled with interest as George shuffled her into the relative privacy of the stationhouse.

  As soon as they were as alone as they could be with half a dozen faces peering in through the windows, George asked again, “What are you doing here?” His icy calm was dissolving into palpable emotion.

  “I came to apologize. Nothing more. I’m so sorry, George.” Holly’s throat closed up. “For my actions back then, for letting things go as far as they went. I never should have let you and my mother push me into an engagement, let alone sweeping me all the way up to that altar. I should have had the courage to speak to you before the wedding, to tell you that I couldn’t, in good conscience, go through with it.”

  “You humiliated me in front of my family, my friends, everyone I knew.” George’s voice shook as he spoke.

  “I know,” Holly managed to squeak out. “And I’m so, so sorry. But you knew that we weren’t suited for each other. You were so rich, from one of the loftiest families in Baltimore. And I…” She lowered her head.

  “I didn’t care who you were.” George grasped her arms, his grip tight but not painful. “I didn’t give a hoot what anyone in my family said against you.”

  She glanced up to meet his eyes. “They said a lot of things against me.” She could still remember the stings, the complete derision in his mother’s eyes whenever the sophisticated woman looked down her nose at her.

  “I told the whole lot of them to go to h—”

  He cleared his throat and straightened, letting go of her.

  “I’m sorry, forgive my language. It was uncalled for.”

  Holly stared at him, frowning. She’d heard him say much worse ten years ago. But then, she’d heard that he’d become a minister. She looked at him now, really looked at him. He wasn’t wearing the expensive, flashy clothes that he’d loved so much when they knew each other before. His garb wasn’t as plain and Spartan as the other minister she’d noticed out by the train, but it was simple. The years had been good to him. He’d aged, but his hair was still full and dark, his waist was still trim, and if the grip he’d had on her arms was any indication, he was still strong.

  That didn’t change the past.

  “I was so far beneath you, George. So far. I had my head turned. Your attention to me was so flattering that I…I…” She shrugged. “I should have known better. I should have been strong enough to stop things before they got out of hand.”

  “Stop me from loving you?” The intensity was back in his eyes in a heartbeat. “Stop yourself from loving me?” he asked, quieter.

  She had loved him. Loved him like an impressionable girl loved the prince in a fairy story. Over the years, she’d managed to convince herself that the love she’d felt was an illusion, an infatuation rather than the real thing.

  Now, she wasn’t so sure.

  No, that thought was wrong and unproductive. It was obvious that the man standing in front of her was not the same man he’d been ten years ago in Baltimore, and she was not the innocent, starry-eyed shop girl. She was a widow, an experienced woman. Not all of those experiences had been good. In fact, most of her life since she’d fled from the church in Baltimore had been nothing but a nightmare.

  But all she could say was, “It wouldn’t have worked.”

  “I put everything on the line for you,” George said, strangely unemotional where he’d been brimming with passion just a moment before. “I went against my parents to marry you, against the advice of my friends. I loved you more than I cared for their opinion.”

  “And I…” No, she couldn’t say it. She couldn’t even think it. It was all dead and gone.

  George took a breath and rubbed a hand over his face. “You don’t know what happened to me after you left.”

  Holly winced. “Actually, George, yes, I do.” She couldn’t look him in the eye as she said, “My parents were sure to tell me all about your drinking, your gambling, your…your women.” Her cheeks flared. That had been the hardest part, knowing he’d taken comfort in the arms of loose women after what she’d done. She couldn’t fight the feeling she’d driven him to all of that. “My parents were intent on keeping me informed about your life, even after I left to marry Bruce.”

  “Bruce?” He lowered his arm and balled his hand into a fist. “You left me standing at the front of that church and went off to marry some man named Bruce?”

  “Certainly not right away,” she told him, amazed she was able to have the conversation without bursting into tears. “About six months afterwards.”

  “Only six months?”

  He was angry, but he had no idea that the source of his anger was every bit a punishment for her cowardice. “You don’t know what it was like for me in my parent’s house afterwards.” She swallowed and looked down. “You can’t imagine the way they treated me. How do people treat the goose that was supposed to lay the golden egg but didn’t?”

  He was silent. The only way she could tell he was considering things from her point of view at all was the loosening of the tension in his face.

  “You know they only encouraged the match because they thought they could get money and a lift in their social status from you and your family,” she added, hesitantly.

  He took his time before saying, “I know. That was one of the reasons my parents were so against the match. They saw your family as social climbers and nothing more.”

  “I was never like that.” The urge to defend herself stepped in before good sense could.

  “I know.” The last bit of anger drained away from his expression, leaving nothing but sadness in its wake. “That’s why I loved you.”

  “And that’s why I had to leave you,” she finished in a near-whisper.

  For a long time, neither of them said anything more. Holly had hoped she would feel unburdened after coming so far to make her apologies face-to face, but the weight of all those mistakes and the tragedy they had caused was still heavy around her. She’d stormed into George’s otherwise settled life like an invading army, but she didn’t feel as if she’d done a lick of good. He didn’t look appeased. She didn’t feel happy. Things were even more tense between them than when she’d stepped off the train.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I just wanted to say that. To your face. I was a coward then, but I won’t be a coward now. When Mrs. Breashears said your name, I knew I had to come. You don’t need to say or do anything.” She swallowed, wishing she could see into his thoughts. “I’ll…I’ll go now.”

  She turned, heart breaking, and opened the stationhouse door to walk away.

  Chapter 2

  “Holly, wait!”

  George pushed himself into motion, chasing after Holly as she tried to leave. They both stopped short inches outside of the stationhouse door. Dozens of curious, hopeful, eager, Haskell faces watched them. The air was thick with their collective need to know what was going on.

  Let her go, a voice inside his head whispered. You don’t want to go through this again. Just let her go.

  He glanced around at the expectant fac
es, his congregation, people who felt they had a vested interest in his life. Not a one of them knew the true story, but he had a feeling that no one in town would be talking about anything but him and Holly from now until Christmas. Just like all of Baltimore society had talked of nothing else but the scandal of a Pickering marrying a shop girl, and then the bigger disgrace of that shop girl jilting him. Ten years ago, the embarrassment and heartbreak had set him on a path that ended up in the brothel with Bonnie, surrounded by fire. Heaven only knew where it would end up this time.

  Let. Her. Go. The voice was as firm as ever.

  He blocked out the curious crowd, focusing on Holly, on her soulful eyes, her bow of a mouth, the curious white streak that hadn’t been in her hair before.

  “Don’t go.” His words sounded distant to his ears. “I brought you here to marry you, so I’ll marry you.”

  Holly blinked. Her shoulders went slack, making George realize how tense she’d been up until that point. Her mouth dropped open, and the pink blush of her cheeks glowed hotter. “You…you still want to marry me?”

  Her simple question carried a decade’s-worth of anguish with it. He swallowed to push down the well of old emotion that he wasn’t ready to deal with. Instead, he cleared his throat and said, “I am a man of my word. I sent for a bride, and a bride is what I have received. I couldn’t in good conscience turn you away.”

  A wave of approving murmurs passed through the onlookers. One man asked, “What’d she do that would make him not want to marry her?”

  Holly’s glance flickered to the side, proving she’d heard the question. Regret painted itself across her expression. She dragged her eyes back to meet George’s. “I’m so sorry for what I did to you back then.” She spoke softly, which caused their audience to press in closer. “I never meant to hurt you. I would understand completely if you want to free yourself from your obligations to me. In fact, I would say you have no obligation.”

  Her words shouldn’t have hurt, but somehow they did. Somehow they made him feel like less of a man for being upset about old mistakes. The genuine contrition in her beautiful eyes didn’t help his writhing feeling of guilt either.

  “Life is hard enough for a woman on her own without being turned away from a promise of marriage,” he said, hating that it all came out so cold and stilted. His congregation was watching, though, so he couldn’t very well burst into a fit of passion. “It wouldn’t be right to leave you to fend for yourself in a rough land like this, not when it’s so cold and wintery.”

  “What does weather have to do with anything?” a man—George didn’t see who—muttered.

  “It can be dangerous here in the West for a woman who doesn’t have the protection of a man by her side.” He tried another excuse.

  “Bonnie has done just fine,” Kathleen Kline—Lex Kline, of Kline’s Mercantile’s oldest daughter, and only just out of school—said with enough spark to start a women’s suffrage society all by herself.

  “I don’t think Holly wants to be independent the way Bonnie is,” Eden told her, one brow arched.

  Murmurs of agreement rose from the rest of the crowd. George would have given anything to have this discussion with Holly alone, unobserved, and without the Greek chorus putting in their two-cents-worth.

  “It’s too close to Christmas to change plans,” he tried yet another set of excuses. “There simply isn’t enough time to help you find another husband, what with preparations for the town’s Christmas pageant and services underway.”

  “I’m pretty sure Zeke Martin would marry her,” Dan, a middle-aged rancher, spoke up from the back of the crowd.

  “Ugh.” Virginia turned to make a face at Dan. “Zeke needs to make improvements to his house and his personal hygiene before he considers getting a wife.”

  “What about Trey Knighton, then?” Howard suggested. “I’ve been telling our intrepid sheriff that it’s time he found a wife for months now.”

  “Don’t get me involved in this,” Trey spoke up. “I’m just here to support George.”

  “How about Sam Standish,” Mrs. Abernathy suggested.

  “No, a nice girl like Holly shouldn’t go marrying the saloonkeeper,” Wendy joined the discussion.

  She wasn’t the only one. Within seconds, the entire assembled crowd was buzzing with suggestions of who Holly should marry instead of George. Holly, for her part, blushed brighter and brighter and lowered her head. She looked like a trapped animal who had closed in on herself when she really just wanted to flee. George’s heart broke for her, but with it came a sick wave of shame. She wore the same look now that she’d worn through their entire engagement, through party after party at which he’d gloated and forced Baltimore high society to toast a modest, good woman. All that had been more so that he could thumb his nose at his family and friends than anything else.

  And she’d come here to apologize instead of slapping him square across the face and spitting in his eye for doing that to her?

  “I have to marry her,” he blurted, bringing the louder and louder discussion to a sudden halt.

  All eyes turned to him. Holly glanced up at him with confusion and…and fear. As quickly as his guilt had welled up, unresolved anger rose with it. Guilt, anger, hurt, regret, and underneath it all, hope. Hope that there might be a way to right the greatest wrong of his life.

  “I said I’d marry you, Holly,” he addressed her, trying to block out the crowd, trying to tamp down the old pain that seemed to pulse hotter with each breath he took. “I said I would, so I will. Because I keep my promises.”

  He knew full well that it sounded like he was scolding her, rubbing in her decision to leave him. Her eyes and the downward tilt of her chin told him that she took it as such. But instead of fighting back and giving him the tongue-lashing he deserved, she took a deep breath and nodded.

  “All right,” she said. “If that’s what you want, I would be happy to stay and marry you after all.”

  The crowd erupted into cheers. George held his breath, stunned. Never in his wildest dreams would he have thought he’d wake up to the day when he would see the fulfillment of a promise he had made just over ten years ago. But there he was, on the verge of marrying Holly at last. She’d said yes a second time, and this time she meant it. A strange, fuzzy feeling filled him, centering around his heart. It was like he hadn’t realized that a chamber of his heart had stopped working until it thumped back to life.

  “Well? What are we waiting for?” Howard boomed. “Let’s all go to the church for a wedding.”

  The crowd cheered even louder, clapping and whooping. The people in back started to move off of the platform and down Station Street toward the church.

  “Wait!” George called out, holding up his hands. “Stop.”

  Everyone stopped and turned back to him, puzzled.

  George took a fortifying breath. “I appreciate your enthusiasm and concern, but I have to think of my future wife. She’s just come a long way on an emotional errand, and it’s plain to me that your affection, while a wonderful gesture, is overwhelming. So I would ask that you please allow us to have a private ceremony. We’ll celebrate some other time.”

  The crowd grumbled and sighed in disappointment. George felt sick over it all. He’d used Holly as an excuse for his own squeamishness over the situation. And while he could tell from the grateful look she sent him that every word he’d said was true, he was well aware that the real reason he didn’t want half the town attending his wedding was because he didn’t know what to think about it himself. He hadn’t been so muddled and uncertain in ages. As far as he could see, he was about to walk into the most painful mistake of his life.

  Relief poured through Holly as the crowd of well-wishers began to disperse from the train platform. It wasn’t that she didn’t approve of their enthusiasm. Actually, it was heartening to see that so many citizens of Haskell cared enough about George to leave their daily routines in order to support him. But there were just so many of them.
/>   “Do you want to take my arm?” George asked as they reached the stairs leading down to the street.

  Holly blinked up at him. Young George had loved to parade around Baltimore with her on his arm. He would sweep her up and clasp her closer than was socially acceptable without ever asking for her permission back then. His attitude now was a striking change from that man.

  “I—”

  “Here, I’ll help you down.” Eden Chance marched up to Holly’s other side and looped her free arm through one of Holly’s. “We’re old friends,” she told George as they stepped down. “I’ve been dying to catch up with her.”

  “Shouldn’t I—” Holly clamped her mouth shut as Eden whisked her ahead of George and a small handful of other men—including the bombastic older man and the one she assumed was another preacher. Clearly Eden had something to say.

  “You never told me that you and George Pickering had a history,” Eden whispered as they rushed along, Winslow, her baby boy, clinging to Eden’s side.

  The unbearable awkwardness of the situation loosened to a more familiar pattern of gossiping with her old friend. “I didn’t know he was even here until Mrs. Breashears mentioned his name,” she defended herself in a low whisper. “You never mentioned him in your letters, and neither did Wendy or Corva.”

  “Hmm. Well, I guess if there was no reason for it to come up, we wouldn’t have,” Eden replied, thinking aloud. “But there’s a reason now. What’s going on?”

  Holly sighed. They had zoomed far enough ahead of the others—or maybe George was deliberately giving her space to talk to Eden—until she felt safe to say, “We were engaged to be married more than ten years ago.”

  “No! Really?”

  Holly nodded to her, wary and lost. “He was much too far above me socially, but he told me he was too in love to let me go.”

  “Obviously, he did let you go.”

  Holly shook her head. “I left him.” She swallowed. “At the altar. Well, no, I never made it up the aisle. I saw him from the back of the church, and I turned and ran.”