With the final jerk, all motion ceased. Her time with Maeve had come to an end, but she knew regardless of where their separate paths led them, they would always be friends. Some journeys bound hearts together, and this was one of them.
“Why, it’s my two mail-order brides.” The conductor, kindly Mr. Blake, paused in the aisle with a sympathetic smile on his round face. He might be a big man and built like on ox, but his heart was bigger. “I’ve been praying for you lovely ladies. Think of the happiness awaiting you. Why, I can’t imagine a thing more romantic. It’s almost like a story, first declaring love with each other through your letters and then finding a deeper love when you meet. It must be all poetry and declarations of the heart, like a fairy tale happening just to you. Not only am I a happily married man, so I know what’s waiting for you, but it’s the Christmas season. Love and happy endings are in the air.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Maeve said gently, as if she wasn’t so sure.
Mercy was even less sure. Love was not the reason she had traveled across the country to wed a stranger. She managed a weak smile.
Mr. Blake was not derailed easily. He pulled something from his pockets. He held up two sprigs of handsome green leaves bearing small white berries. A tiny bow of thin velvet ribbon added a festive touch. He grinned widely. “Think of this gift as a wish and a prayer for your happy marriages. For your first kisses on Christmas Day with your new husbands.”
“It’s mistletoe!” Maeve exclaimed, surprised.
“Oh, thank you.” Mercy accepted hers, touched by his thoughtfulness. She wished to say more but he’d already touched his hand to his cap and moved on to help an elderly lady with her valise at the end of the car.
“Bless you, Mr. Blake.” Maeve quickly pinned her spray of mistletoe to her collar. “I appreciate the thoughtful wish.”
“And you’ll have mine, too.” Mercy gave Maeve a brief hug. “My prayers for you won’t cease.”
“Nor will mine for you.” With that, Maeve grabbed her young daughter’s hand. Little four-year-old Violet was adorable with her dark auburn hair, cherub’s face and violet-blue eyes. She looked up at her mother expectantly. Maeve appeared grim as she stepped into the aisle. “Be happy, my friend.”
“You, too.” She knew how Maeve felt—hollow, knowing that Mr. Blake’s wishes for them could not come true. A business arrangement did not a real marriage make. She hugged Maeve and said goodbye to Violet, and they were gone, traipsing down the aisle.
Lord, please grant her happiness in her new marriage, Mercy prayed. Somehow.
Her stomach clenched as she settled back into her seat. Soon, it would be her turn to step off the train and meet the man she’d agreed to bind her life to. She smoothed George’s flyaway blond hair with her hand. That cowlick always stuck straight up, regardless of what she did. Love for her boy filled her heart.
He was the reason she’d accepted this mail-order situation. Regardless of the type of man Cole Matheson turned out to be, if he was a good father to her son, she would be content. She would endure any disappointments silently and be grateful for a convenient marriage, one without love.
* * *
“Hurry, Pa! We’ll be late for the train.” Amelia’s voice echoed through the dry-goods store, rising above the rustle and din of Christmas customers filling the aisles. The tap of her impatient gait struck like a hammer in uneven raps through the store as she skirted knots of customers and arrowed straight for him. “You promised, Pa. You said you’d keep an eye on the time.”
“It’s been a busy day.” Cole Matheson looked over the top of his reading spectacles, pausing in tallying up Mrs. Lanna Wolf’s purchases. He frowned at his daughter. “I haven’t heard the train whistle. It’s not time yet.”
“It’s four o’clock.” The thirteen-year-old skidded to a stop in front of the counter, her apple cheeks pink from running, her strawberry-blond hair threatening to escape her braids, strands tumbling loose to curl around her face. She looked as if she’d been playing outside with the boys again, with chunks of snow melting in her hair and her blue flannel dress wet in spots. She gestured toward the clock on the wall. “The train’s late and so are you. C’mon, we’ve got to hurry.”
“I have to finish helping Mrs. Wolf,” he said sternly, for all the good it did. Amelia was used to his ways and wasn’t troubled by them. “Now politely apologize to Mrs. Wolf.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am.” Amelia bobbed in a quick curtsy. “But my new mother is coming on the train today, and Pa isn’t nearly as excited about it as I am.”
“Why, this is wonderful news. I hadn’t heard.” Lanna Wolf smiled gracefully, apparently not troubled by the child’s behavior. “Congratulations to you both. What a happy thing to have happen right before Christmas.”
“It’s my Christmas present,” Amelia was quick to explain. “It’s the only gift I’ve asked for every Christmas for three Christmases in a row, and this year I finally wore Pa down. All I had to do was mention how I needed a ma on account of one day soon I’ll be needing a corset, and that did it. It changed his mind on the spot.”
“I suppose it would.” Lanna laughed, seemingly unaware he’d turned two shades brighter than a beet.
“And she’s really nice. I read every one of her letters and even wrote her two. She answered them both. I think she’ll be a really good ma.” Amelia released a dramatic, satisfied sigh. “It’ll be the best Christmas present ever.”
For his daughter, at least. Cole slipped his glasses higher on his nose and squinted at the column of figures. He doubled-checked his addition and gave Mrs. Wolf her total.
“Just add it to my account, please, Cole.” Lanna settled her warm winter hat on her elaborate knot of hair. “Can you deliver this all by supper time?”
“My delivery boy will do his best.” He scribbled a note to the boy on the slip, letting him know that Mrs. Wolf was a priority customer. “Hard to say with the storm moving in.”
“Yes, it has the feel of a blizzard out there,” Lanna agreed while his daughter bounced up and down in place with her “hurry, Pa” look. “Blessings on your new marriage, and Amelia, I’m so happy you’ll have a new mother. What are the odds, I wonder, that she knows what she’s getting into?”
“I’ll behave, I promise.” Amelia’s sweet, heart-shaped face shone with earnestness. Amelia was a good girl, but she was rambunctious, regardless of how much she tried otherwise. Perhaps a prim and proper mother’s influence would help curb that.
It was his only prayer. Mercy Jacobs came across in her letters as quiet and sensible, and heaven knew that was exactly what his daughter needed. Curbing Amelia’s unladylike behavior was the true reason he’d agreed to marry a complete stranger. Every woman he’d approached in town either laughed at his convenient marriage proposition or gaped at him with horror.
At least he hoped Amelia was the reason those women had looked at him that way.
“I’ll take over, boss.” Middle-aged and efficient Eberta Quinn bustled over in her sensible brown frock. “I’ll finish wrapping Mrs. Wolf’s packages.”
As Lanna hurried off to her next shopping errand,
