Jillian Hart - Mail-Order Christmas Brides Boxed Set

In the back room, he shrugged into his coat, hardly noticing what he was doing, and launched out the door into the alley. Thick, busily falling chunks of snow hailed toward the ground, and he knuckled down his hat to shield his face. Mercy. He wasn’t looking forward to facing her. The sick feeling in his gut told him he already knew what he had to do.

She was young and beautiful, and regardless of what she’d agreed to, she wanted a loving marriage. She deserved that. As he trudged down the alley between buildings toward the intersecting street, snowflakes struck his face like tears. He cared about her. He couldn’t help it. Last night, talking with her, sharing his painful past, had opened up a door to that pain he could no longer close. He could not live like this day after day, with the agony of what he’d lost wringing him out over and over.

“Why, it’s Cole Matheson,” a friendly voice called out. Reverend Hadly climbed out of his sled in front of the livery stable. “I was just thinking about you and your upcoming wedding. Christmas Eve ceremonies are my favorite. There’s something special about them on such a sacred night.”

“I agree.” His throat closed up and he was barely able to squeeze out the words. Seeing the minister reminded him of the commitment he feared he couldn’t make. That failure troubled him. “I hope you are on your way home. The temperature is dropping.”

“It surely is. I’m trying to keep my teeth from chattering. Now, what about you?” Hadly’s round face crinkled with concern. “You look troubled. It’s natural to have a hard time moving on. Amelia brought Mercy by the church this morning, and anyone can see she is a gift from God. A much-needed blessing for your life.”

“God doesn’t need to bless my life.” The confession felt like an anvil on his chest, the truth of it was something he’d kept inside since he’d lost wife and baby. “I’m fine. I don’t need anything. It’s the children who matter.”

And Mercy. He ached more thinking of what he couldn’t be for her. He could not be what she needed, what she deserved. He’d lost his heart, so he could not love her. He was no longer a man capable of deep feeling. He swiped snow off his lashes and spotted one of the stable workers, who nodded at him and disappeared, hurrying to fetch Frosty. Another appeared to take the reins of the reverend’s horse.

“An arrangement for the children’s sake can be a blessing for you, too.” Hadly brushed snow off his hat, turning to head home. “Maybe God has been waiting all this time to bring the right woman into your life. He knows your heart.”

Then He knows my failings, Cole thought, watching the veil of snow close around the minister, stealing him from sight. The jingle of a harness speared his attention. The sight of his gelding clomping toward him, led by the stable worker, reminded him of where he was headed next. Home. There was no more delaying it. No more denying it.

He mounted up, riding bareback through the outskirts of town. The driving snow chilled him and hastened Frosty’s quick gait along the snowy road. When he’d proposed to Mercy, he’d imagined her to be hardened by the world, weary of hardship, content to find the sanctuary of a convenient marriage and a good home. From her letters, she’d sounded like a practical, no-nonsense kind of lady. A good mother, gently spoken, proper to a fault.

Just what he’d been wanting. Instead, he’d gotten a beautiful young woman full of hopes and full of life. He could still picture her zipping down the hillside on Amelia’s sled, skirts flying. The music of her laughter, the pull of her heart on his, the way she’d dismantled half of his defenses with a single, caring touch. She was tearing his world apart.

Worse, he acknowledged as the countryside rolled by, she was tearing him apart.

The house came into view on the knoll just outside of town. The windows glowed golden with lamplight, drawing him like a candle in the darkness, the only light by which to see. He rode close enough to spy a figure pass in front of the kitchen window and linger.

Mercy. She must be preparing supper, he reasoned, noticing the way she leaned slightly forward, intent on a task before her. Light gleamed on her blond hair, polished the lovely curve of her cheek, highlighted her soft full bottom lip as she turned to smile at someone else in the room. Likely his daughter. Mercy’s face lit, radiating a mother’s love. Nothing could be more beautiful. His pulse stammered, affected, and his heart vibrated with agonizing pain.

It was too much. He tore his gaze away, dismounted and led Frosty into the barn. The horses, who’d retreated to their stalls for shelter from the storm, poked their heads over their gates to welcome him with neighs and nickers and curious eyes. Howie looked especially dapper, his brown gaze shining with happiness. Cole didn’t need to guess why. Clearly George had spent part of the day with him.

As he put up Frosty and closed the rest of the horses into the barn, he held himself as still as he could, letting his broken heart rest. No thinking of Mercy, or the wedding or the decision he had to make. He shook his head, bit his lip. How could he marry her like this? He could not be what she wanted, and he was sorry. Very sorry. He didn’t even know how to be the man of deep feeling he’d once been, when he’d been whole, when wife and baby hadn’t taken the best part of him with them. He was left with the shell of the man he used to be, and it was no good for anyone. Not Amelia, not George and especially not Mercy.

He’d wanted a wife to step in and be the parent he could not be, caring and involved, emotionally there for Amelia. At her age and with the changes of womanhood coming, she needed that. But he couldn’t endure a wife who reminded him of the emptiness within him, the hollow place that remained where his heart used to be. Where his love used to be.

He couldn’t endure the knowledge of what that would do to Mercy.

The minute he stepped foot outside the barn, closing the doors behind him, her light drew him through the storm. He tried not to look up; he tried not to be moved by her. The anguish inside him strengthened until it felt as if every bone he owned was breaking. Snow tapped against his hat, brushed his cheek, clung to his coat as he marched up the hill toward the house. The minister’s words stayed with him, too. She is a gift from God. A much-needed blessing for your life.

A blessing shouldn’t hurt, he thought, his mind reaching upward as if in prayer. The God he still believed in would not lead him to more pain.

He stepped into the fall of light from the front window. Standing on the steps, ready to knock the snow from his boots, he saw into the house. A green spruce tree stood proudly in the drawing room, grandly holding up paper chains and popcorn strings on its evergreen boughs. George went up on tiptoe to hang a paper snowflake by a yarn loop. The boy bit his bottom lip, button face scrunched up in thought, before choosing the exact spot he wanted for the decoration.

Amelia breezed into view, bubbly and bouncing, happier than he’d ever seen her. Relaxed, delighted, somehow more mature and elegant as she handed George another snowflake to hang. The boy took it gladly and the two of them contemplated where to place it. At their feet lay brightly wrapped presents tied up with ribbons and adorned with bows. The scene looked like something out of a Christmas dream.

This was Mercy’s doing, Cole thought, hand to his chest, grimacing at the soul-breaking crack of his heart. She was changing everything with her love and gentle kindness. Bringing life back to his house, bringing Amelia to her better self, making a home for her son.

Mercy waltzed into sight, resplendent in a new dress, obviously from Cora’s shop. The finely tailored garment, as red as a holly berry, skimmed her slender shape and brought out lustrous red tones in her blond hair. She looked taller somehow, as if no longer bowed down by hardship, her beauty more radiant. Joy polished her with a rare luster.