Mail-Order Christmas Brides. Jillian Hart

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СКАЧАТЬ fit in here. You don’t suit. Surely you can feel it, too?”

       “Papa! What do you mean? No. Don’t send her away.” Gertie’s face crumpled. Life drained from her like sun from the sky. Misery said what she could not. She turned around, climbing onto her knees, gripping the seat back with Miss Sawyer’s gloves still on her hands. Her blue gaze lassoed him, letting him feel her anguish.

       He blinked hard against the stab of pain in his chest. He didn’t want his girl hurt. That’s why he was doing this. It was the right thing. That didn’t give him comfort as he unwound the chain, the rattle of metal echoing straight through him as if nothing, not even his soul, remained.

       “It’s the best thing to do, Gertie.” He tried to comfort her with his voice. “You’ll never know how sorry I am.”

       “Oh, Papa.” The springs creaked as she sat down proper and buried her face in her hands.

       He broke right along with her. He had no idea how to fix the situation and scowled at the woman responsible. Miss Sawyer in her tailored clothes tapped rapidly in his direction. Already folks on the boardwalk were passing by, throwing curious glances their way. One word from any of them about his past, and she would be gone, anyway. She had options. He did not. He dropped the chain on the wagon box and reached for the trunk. A yellow ruffle flounced into view.

       “How don’t I suit?” Not a demand, but a plea. “You don’t know me. You’ve hardly said a few dozen words to me.”

       “I just know. Isn’t it obvious to you?” He couldn’t be what she’d been wishing for. He dragged the trunk closer. He meant to be kind. He wished he could be. “Look, I’m not the right sort of husband for you. I’m going to do the best thing for both of us. It’s better you go now than later. Better for her.”

       “For Gertie?” Confusion knelled in her words, drawing him closer, making him look. In the thinning afternoon light, the sun continued to find her, to glow in the golden wisps of her hair, to make luminous her ivory complexion. “I wouldn’t hurt her for the world. I don’t understand this.”

       “I’m being honest and doing what’s right, Miss Sawyer—”

       “Felicity,” she insisted, moving in to lay her hand on his. The shock of her touch, warm and innocent on his cold skin, made his mind empty, his knees buckle and his anger fade.

       The anger was just a defense. He really didn’t dislike her. That was the worst part. Of all the things she could have said, he wasn’t prepared for her concern toward his daughter.

       “Give me a chance, that’s all I’m asking.” Her eyes were darker than blueberries. He could see the shadows in them, the wounds of spirit that made the muscle in his chest clamp harder. As if she sensed his weakness, she pleaded on, “At least wait until you know me before you send me away.”

       “What about Gertie? She wants you to stay, but you could have anyone. You are beautiful—” Heat stained his face. Bashful from fear of revealing too much, he stared hard at the square of snow visible between his boots.

       “You think I’m beautiful?” She breathed the words like wonder, but surely he was only imagining that. Women like Miss Sawyer probably heard that all the time. Her hand remained on his, never moving.

       What did he say? Pride held him up as he stared at the hand on his, small and delicate. The slightly rough calluses on the pads of her fingers surprised him. Up close he could see the loneliness shining in her eyes and the set of her delicate jaw, strong, as if used to facing hardship.

       Now that he took the time to see it, she wore the air of a woman who’d been on her own too long and struggled to make ends meet. He finally noticed the wear on her coat, although lovingly cared for, and not the new garment he’d mistaken it to be.

       “Miss, you don’t look desperate enough to settle for the likes of me.” He might as well admit the truth.

       The truth had a startling effect on her. He watched amazed as her guard went down, as the pools that were her eyes deepened to show more of her. He looked into that well of sadness and loss, and felt the muscles where his heart used to be whip tight. He’d been so wrapped up in his own challenges, fighting to right what was wrong in his life to make things better for his daughter that he’d forgotten adversity could fall like rain, striking many people.

       “You were not what I envisioned, Tate. I can’t deny it.” The pearls of her teeth dug into her bottom lip as she hesitated, perhaps debating the right words. “I imagined you any number of ways. Tall or short. Bony or beefy. Disagreeable or pleasant. But any way I pictured you, I prayed that what I felt when I read your advertisement was true. That you were a man who loved his daughter above all else, a man of heart and gentleness.”

       Her words struck like bullets in the empty place between his ribs. He cast a glance at Gertie, still bent forward on the seat, her back to him, her thin shoulders shaking with silent sobs. He wished he could turn back time, reassemble the man he used to be so he could give her the kindness she deserved.

       But not even God could change the past, so he straightened his spine. He may be many things, but a coward wasn’t one of them. “I am not gentle. I have no heart. And likely when you hear what folks say about me, you will be off to seek out the next man on your list who is looking for a wife.”

       “No. There are no others on my list. I wanted Gertie from the start. From the moment I read your words in the paper I wanted to be her mother.” She changed before his eyes, drawing herself up like a woman weary of fighting battles and resigned to fight one more. Hurt etched in her fine-boned features as she set her chin another notch higher. “Tell me this one thing, it’s all that I care about. Have you ever harmed a woman? Will you harm me?”

       “Never. But why on earth would you want me?” Glimmers of the past flashed into his mind, memories he would not allow to take hold. He stared at the hotel’s sign, debating what to do. Black letters on brass glinted in the waning sun, perhaps a sign he should not relent. He should stick to his decision and send her away. He hated how hard Gertie was crying. What should he do? “The way I see it, you’ve got to be hiding something. What is it, Miss Sawyer? If you are not desperate or in sad straits, then there is some other reason you’re here.”

       “I never said I wasn’t in desperate straits.” Her hand on his remained, a physical link between them, and suddenly it became more. Her touch sank down as if trying to snare his emotions, somehow a bond between them.

       “I lost my job as a seamstress. The town I grew up in began to die when the railroad bypassed it. First, a few businesses closed and left. Then the mill shut down. Jobs dried up. I didn’t want to leave, hoping my sisters whom I was separated from would return. How else could we find each other again? So I stayed longer than I should have, living on hope and my savings until even that was gone.” The fading light framed her, as if it hated to let go of such honesty.

       He knew how the light felt, as he reluctantly slipped his hand from beneath hers, breaking the connection between them and any bond she tried to create. A tie that could never be. He hardened himself to it and swallowed hard.

      Don’t let her story soften you, he told himself, but less bitterness soured him as he checked on his daughter. Still silently crying, shaking with sobs of loss. How could he leave her sitting there like that? Worse, how could he trust her with a woman who didn’t need her enough?

       “I have nowhere to go, no prospects, no other advertisements I’ve answered. I love your daughter, Tate. СКАЧАТЬ