Jillian Hart (14 page)

A good job waiting for her, or so she hoped. The chance for a real future. Maybe, if she saved hard, she might have a little house of her own one day to decorate and make cozy like this. Maybe she would find a man to fall in love with, one who could make her forget Gabe Chapman and his lopsided smile and his gentle strength.

With Mary tucked in bed, her faith in Santa Claus stubborn and unyielding, Gabe turned his attention to banking the fires so she would be safe while he slipped outside. The embers buried, he fetched his coat from the hook and shrugged into it.

His gaze landed on the tree in the dark corner, limbs widespread, holding unlit candles and sprays of ribbon, strings of popcorn and cranberries. The scent of pine teased his nose, just as the memories tugged at his heart. Memories of Sara in this room, her gentle affection for Mary like a single flame in the darkness chasing away shadows.

This room had been filled with happiness and song, with her sweet, low laughter and Mary's giggles. How good it felt, how joyful, to have had her here. He would never stand in the parlor again without thinking of her and of what could have been.

He knelt to snatch the gift from beneath the tree, one with her name on it, one of many she had chosen to leave behind.

He headed out into the heavy snow, flakes blinding him as he crossed the road. The wind cut through his clothes like a knife. He felt frozen by the time he stomped the snow off his boots on Connie's back porch. Only the kitchen light was on. He pushed his way into the lean-to and rapped his knuckles against the inside door.

"Gabe." She stared up at him with dread dark in her eyes. "If you've come to tell me to leave, I want you to know that I have already made arrangements to go first thing in the morning."

"You sure took care of that fast."

"I only wish it were sooner. Mr. Hawkins has a wagon load of goods to deliver north of Missoula, and he's agreed to take me if the train isn't running." Her voice wobbled, and she kept her chin bowed as she retreated farther into the kitchen. "So you don't need to stay. Mary shouldn't be alone."

"Mary is fine for a little while. Look. I can see the house from here." He wished he could hate Sara Mercer for her deception, but how could he hate the woman who had made it possible for him and Ann to raise their own baby? How could he ever hate the woman with eyes the same color as his daughter's? "I could use some of that tea."

Her hands shook as she lifted another cup from the cabinets. She kept her back to him, spine stiff, chin set. "I never meant to harm Mary. I want you to know that. I just wanted to see her, just once. That was all."

The cup clanked on the counter and the lid of the china pot rattled with her nervousness. "A woman I worked with at the laundry had attended Connie's wedding last year, and told us all about it. Nobody knew about Mary, of course, but they did talk about you, since you had grown up in Oak's Grove, and how you had settled in Moose Creek too. I can't tell you how wonderful it was to learn such a small detail about my little baby. I didn't know about Ann's death. When Aunt Ester offered me this job, I couldn't believe my luck. Moose Creek was a stop on the railroad line. It seemed too good to be true."

She set the steaming cup on the table near him, then retreated. Her gaze stayed low, and her hands nervously worried a loose thread at her cuff. "I should never had been so selfish."

He tried to imagine how hard it had been for Sara to give up her baby, one conceived in love. She must have held every dream of raising her beautiful daughter herself before her husband's death. Not to be forced to hand the baby over to strangers and never know what had become of her.

He set the box on the table, wrapped in gay red paper, Mary's choice.

Sara tried to imagine what Gabe could mean by offering her a gift, one that had been left beneath the tree all three of them had decorated together with happiness and song. It was a small package. It couldn't contain much more than a folded length of lace, maybe a small handkerchief.

"Go ahead. Open it."

It was so hard to judge the tone of his voice. Her stomach felt tied in knots. She was braced for his anger, for his suspicions, for worse. Not a gift as Christmas morning arrived, dark with the quiet bong of the clock and the pop of the fire inside the stove.

The box was light in her hand. She carefully untied the red ribbon, a length of the same yardage Mary had chosen to trim her new velvet dress. She would save this always. When she felt lonely for her daughter on any night to come, she would have memories and this gift.

The paper folded away easily to reveal a plain white box. Sara lifted the lid and something winked in the low lamplight, something bright and dazzling. On a bed of velvet sparkled a ring of rubies, rich and priceless, the same color as Mary's dress. She had never seen valuable gemstones before but knew as they winked and glittered how expensive the rubies must be.

"This was my mother's." Gabe's step tolled as he circled the table, ambling into the shadows where the single lamp could not reach. "Mary wanted you to have it."

"It's a wedding ring." She slipped the lid back on the box. "I can't accept anything so fine. Mary should keep it."

"She wanted you to spend Christmas Eve with us and to have you open the gift before we went to church. She wanted to ask you to marry us."

Mary was bound to be disappointed when she learned Sara could not be the mother she asked Santa for. "I don't know how to fix this. I wish I'd never..."

No, she was glad she'd come. She felt stronger for knowing how loved her baby was, that Mary's life was good and her happy smile genuine.

"I do know how to fix it." Gabe's hands covered hers, big strong hands that looked capable enough to solve any problem, no matter how great.

"I already plan to leave."

"That wasn't the solution I had in mind." He towered over her, a man of strength but of goodness too. Without a drop of hatred in his eyes as true as forgiveness. "Accept the ring and marry us."

"Marry you?" Sara choked. Pain seared down her windpipe, spread through her chest. "How can you ask me such a thing?"

"I know you never came to hurt Mary or to try to take her, or work your way into her life. If you had, you would have done it differently, not tried to leave every chance you got."

A smile touched his lips, lopsided and so drawing she could not look away. He was all she saw, mighty man and sturdy kindness, the kind a woman could depend on all her life.

"I can't imagine how painful it must have been to give up your baby. Or how you've longed for her all these years." His voice broke, a low rumble of emotion that came straight from his heart. "I know you just wanted to let go, to see the little girl you loved."

"That's all I wanted, Gabe. I feel so guilty. I seized every chance to get to know Mary more when I should have asked you to find me another place to live. But I stayed here with Connie, right in the middle of your family. I lied to you all. I'm ashamed I did, but to see Mary..."

Her chin wobbled, and her big beautiful eyes silvered with tears. "How can I ever find the words to thank you for being her father? You've given her a life I could never dream of providing her. I can't tell you how grateful I am. To know that in giving her up, I gave her you."

"Sara." How his heart rent seeing her tears, seeing the pain she kept tucked inside. The years had not been easy, longing always for the baby she loved so much. He cradled her hand, so feminine and delicate, and pressed kisses to her slim knuckles. "You seem to think that I've done something, but all I did was be a father, nothing more. It's nothing like what you have given me."

"What could I possibly give?"

She didn't know—he could read that in her eyes, puzzled and lost, so lost. And he would show her the way home.

"You gave me Mary. You brought light back into our lives made dark by Ann's death. And gifts of laughter and songs and something more, something better." He laid his hand against her jaw, cupping her dear face. "You've shown us an unselfish love, one so true and pure I've never seen the like. You have placed Mary's happiness far above your own, and you have captured my whole heart, Sara Mercer. I love you and I'll be damned if I'm going to let you leave."

She eased into his arms, pressing her cheek against his chest. A great satisfaction licked through him, growing stronger until all he felt was his love for her, bright and shining and without end.

"You truly want me to stay?"

He nodded, and Sara squeezed the tears from her eyes, unable to believe.

But with one look at his face, she saw the truth of his words, the brilliance of his love as sure as the light in the room.

He wanted her, this man with a heart big enough to see the best in her, to offer a love rare and true. He kissed her and fire flitted through her chest, heated her blood, fueled sparkling desire. For him, for this man she would love the rest of her life.

Gabe scooped the ring from the box, glinting and shimmering, and slipped it around her ring finger. She stared at her left hand, overcome.

"Marry me," he whispered tenderly.

"Yes." Joy filled her. She was going to be Gabe's wife. It was that simple, and yet it was everything. "But what about Mary? What will we tell her?"

"We'll tell her the truth." Gabe took Sara's hand and led her to the window, where the storm had dissipated into a gentle snowfall. The clouds parted to allow a few brilliant stars to shine upon them, silvering the silent night, bringing peace to the world.

"The truth? I don't want her hurt, Gabe. I don't want her to forget Ann."

"She needs to know, Sara. She needs to know that years ago a woman had to give up her beloved baby. And came at Christmas time to see her little girl, just to see her, thinking she wasn't wanted."

He wrapped one arm around Sara's shoulders, sheltering her against his strong body, holding her close. "But what the woman didn't know was that she brought with her a gift the little girl had been waiting for, and her father too."

"What gift did I bring?" Sara looked out at the house across the street where Mary slept, where they would live together as a family, a real family, a place where she finally belonged.

"You gave us your love, Sara." His lips brushed her brow, gentle and reverent. "It was as though we were living in darkness until you came. And now all I see is the future with you and me and Mary."

"And maybe another baby one day."

"Maybe."

Arm in arm, they watched the snow stop, the last flakes dancing and whirling weightlessly to earth. Calm settled over the land, and the reverent brush of the starlight made the snow gleam like silver, rich and rare.

"Come, Sara." He took her hand. "Let's go home."

###

An Excerpt from

Hannah's Heart

Colton Kincaid reined in the team of horses. Trepidation skidded over him like the fat chunks of falling snow. It wasn't much of a town. Just a couple streets, a handful of businesses, and a few unimpressive houses. But it looked quiet and safe. A real family place. A town where nothing went wrong, men were honest, and, he figured, there would be no need for a full-time sheriff.

Colton felt a tug on his sleeve.

"I'm hungry."

This child was all he had in the world. Colton studied the small boy's round face, and a trickle of hope filled him. Maybe he could find what he was looking for in this forgotten little town. A home for his son. The dream of living again.

Lights shone through the falling snow, warm like a beacon welcoming him home.

Home
. Colton craved it like the feel of a hot, crackling fire. He'd been without one for so long. But this was the last leg of a long journey. After this, there would be no more traveling. He snapped the reins. The team broke into a trot as if they sensed the town might mean home, too, and the sled's runners squeaked on the loosely packed snow.

The main street was quiet, perhaps on account of the storm. Only one horse, a fine spotted mustang, stood drowsing at the hitching post outside the only hotel.

"Look at the lights," he told his son. "We can eat in there."

"Want beans."

"Me, too, little fella." Colton reined in the team and climbed from the sleigh, careful to keep cold air from slipping in beneath the thick blankets, careful to keep a tight control on his heart. It would be easy to start putting up dreams, building on them one by one, looking at a peaceful place like this.

Dreams, he'd learned, didn't buy a boy a hot meal and a safe bed for the night. Hard work did. And by God, that's why he was here—to start a partnership with his one-time friend and, in time, buy his own land.

Determined to right old wrongs, Colton lifted the child from his snug nest in the sleigh.

The hotel's front door popped open, and his gaze landed on the woman who emerged with one hand propped on the doorknob. She stopped in the well-lit threshold, her back to him as she laughed with someone inside.

"Rose Carson," she said, light as air, "you stop matchmaking for me. Maybe you should concentrate on finding men for the younger girls in this town. They're foolish enough to actually
want
husbands."

The woman turned, facing him. Lamplight filtered through the window, burnishing her uncovered gold hair. His breath caught at the sight. Her face was heart-shaped, her blue eyes kind.

"What a handsome son you have." Warmth. Gentleness. Those qualities filled her voice like melody and harmony, and she breezed closer.

"Thank you," Colton managed. If he had one pride, it was his son. The quiet, gentle-hearted soul who'd been left in his care after Ella's death. Colton set the boy on the ground, keeping a firm hold of him so his small feet wouldn't slip on the ice.

"How old is he?"

"Two," Colton answered.

Zac held up three fingers.

The woman's laughter made the freezing air feel warmer and easier to bear. "Well, little one, you'll have to come to my Sunday School class. We have two other children who are just your age. That is, if you're planning on staying in town that long." She tilted her face and looked up at him. His heart skipped five beats.