The Surprise Christmas Bride. Maureen Child

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СКАЧАТЬ Casey said automatically, then blew fruitlessly at a sopping-wet lock of blond hair hanging in front of her right eye. She didn’t want to let go of the calf long enough to shove her hair and what was left of her veil off her face. The poor little thing was so scared it would probably take off, and she’d never manage to catch it again, running in the mud.

      The trembling calf shifted position, leaning into her. She staggered under its surprising weight and looked back into those big brown eyes. “Do you know something? Your eyes are a lot like my fiancé’s. Or rather, my ex-fiancé’s.” She frowned slightly before adding, “But don’t worry, I won’t hold that against you. They look better on you, anyway.”

      The animal snorted and bawled again.

      “I felt like crying myself earlier,” she murmured sympathetically. “You might not know this, but I was supposed to get married today.”

      Her little friend shivered heavily.

      “I know. It gives me cold chills just to think about it now.” Casey leaned down and rubbed her cheek against the back of the animal’s head. Her feet felt like two blocks of muddy ice and she was beginning to lose feeling in her fingers altogether. Stupid weather. Trying to ignore her own discomfort, she kept talking to her little friend. “The worst part was telling everyone that there wouldn’t be a wedding. You should have seen their faces, pal.”

      He mooed quietly.

      “Who?” she asked with a choked laugh. “The people in the church, of course.” She sniffed. “And my parents. It’s a good thing for Steven that his note said he was going to Mexico. If my father had been able to get his hands on that jerk…” She sighed and lifted her head to look at her new friend again. “It’s not every day a girl gets jilted, you know. Don’t you think I should be feeling worse than I am about all this?”

      The calf shook its head.

      “I don’t, either,” Casey’s fingers stroked the animal’s rough yet smooth hide. She shivered hard before saying, “Now don’t be offended because I said your eyes were like Steven’s. It’s not your fault, after all. Besides,” she pointed out with a wry smile, “you seem to have a much more pleasant personality.”

      The calf moved and stomped on her toes.

      She yelped and dragged her foot out from under the animal’s hoof. “You dance like Steven, too.”

      The wind kicked up, snatching at her veil and flinging it out around her. “I know it’s hard to believe now,” she told the squirming calf, “but a few hours ago, I looked pretty good.”

      An image leaped in her brain. Of her, standing at the back of the church, waiting for her cue to start down the incredibly long pine-bough-decorated aisle at her father’s side. She’d looked at her ten maids of honor lined up in front of her and realized she didn’t really know any of them.

      Oh, they went to the same functions. Told the same stories. Laughed at the same jokes. But not one of those ten women would she have considered a friend. Then it had struck her that the one real friend she had wasn’t even attending her wedding. Annie had refused to watch her friend make what she called a “giant mistake.”

      The doubts she’d been battling for months had risen in her again. But then the organ music had started, swelling out into the church and stealing away her breath. The first bridesmaid had been about to start her staggered walk down the aisle when an usher had brought Casey the note from Steven.

      During the next few interminably long minutes, she’d endured curious stares, hushed whispers and even a muffled laugh or two. She hadn’t been able to find a friendly face anywhere in the crowd of surprised disappointed guests.

      Even her parents had been too stunned to offer comfort to her. Her father, grim-faced and tight-lipped, stood awkwardly patting her mother’s shoulder as she wept quietly into her hanky. The twins, Casey’s older brothers, looked as though they just wanted to find someone to punch.

      Naturally, when she ran out of the church a few minutes later and jumped into her sports car—which one of her brothers had thoughtfully driven to the church—she’d instinctively headed for her one real friend.

      The only person she could count on to listen to her. To tell her that she wasn’t crazy. That she was right to feel as though she’d just escaped from prison.

      Annie Parrish.

      Casey yanked her full skirt a little higher over the animal’s back and told herself that all she had to do now was find the Parrish ranch. Hopefully before she froze to death. It had been only five years since her family had moved out of Simpson. Why did everything look so different?

      The rain, she thought. She was only disoriented because of the rain. When the storm passed, she would find the ranch. If the storm passed, her mind added silently. She glanced up at the black clouds overhead, noted the wind-whipped trees surrounding the meadow and fought down her first thread of worry. For all she knew, it could start snowing any minute. By morning she would be nothing more than the ice statue of a haggard-looking bride.

      The Irish lace and ivory silk dress she wore felt as though it weighed five hundred pounds. The fabric had soaked up the rain like a dime-store sponge, and the heavy mud along the hemline wasn’t helping the situation any. Idly she wondered what the gown’s designer would say if she could see her creation now.

      The world’s most expensive tent for water-logged calves.

      And what, Casey asked herself, would her father say?

      She groaned quietly and closed her eyes for a second or two. Henderson Oakes wasn’t going to be a happy man for quite a while. No doubt he would take Casey’s being jilted as a personal affront. Though basically good people, her parents were far more concerned about how things looked than with how things really were.

      Better not to even think about them yet.

      The rain came down harder and began to feel like a thousand cold knives stabbing her body. Her back ached from hunching over the calf. Her arms were scratched from clawing her way through barbed wire to rescue the little beast. She’d lost one shoe to the muck and she definitely felt a cold coming on.

      With any luck it would develop into pneumonia.

      “Here comes the bride,” she sang softly, then stopped abruptly. If she wasn’t so blasted tired and if she wasn’t afraid she’d sink neck deep in mud, Casey would have plopped right down on the ground and had a good cry.

      “What in hell are you doing, lady?”

      The deep gravelly voice seemed to come out of nowhere. She jumped, staggered and fell across the calf’s sturdy little body. Throwing one hand down onto the muddy ground, Casey broke her fall and ignored the tiny twinge of pain that shot through her wrist. She cocked her head to one side and looked through her veil’s saturated netting at a man on a horse.

      Finally. Help.

      At least she hoped it was help.

      She really had to start paying more attention to her surroundings. She’d been so wrapped up in her own thoughts she hadn’t even heard the horse and rider approach.

      Pushing herself upright, Casey kept one hand on the calf and looked at the man carefully. His СКАЧАТЬ