have owned my heart from the first time I kissed you. We may have been broken and lost, but we’re being given a second chance to—”
“I love you.”
The words tumbled out with no warning, no plan, as if my heart shoved them out to make room for all the emotion blowing up in there.
Ben’s composure faltered, a rush of breath escaping his chest as he blinked rapidly and fought it back.
“Will you be my wife, Josephine Bancroft?” he asked, his voice breaking on my name.
A sob stole my breath, and I clapped a hand over my mouth. How had it—I came over here to blow my top and now—now my entire brain felt like it was going to explode, and yet nothing in my whole life had ever felt more right and more real than this.
“Please, Josie,” he said. “Marry me. Today. On Christmas Eve.”
Warm tears fell over my fingers, and a crazy bark of laughter choked out of my throat.
“Today?” I squeaked.
Because that was clearly the strangest part?
“I’ll get the preacher here before dark—hell, I’ll go pick him up myself,” he said, rising to his feet, his eyes never leaving mine. Rough hands touched my cheeks and wiped away my tears. “I’ll marry you this very day and make Christmas Eve a day to make you smile. For once.”
My thoughts jumbled over one another, screaming resounding yeses for every no I searched for.
“But—Abigail,” I began. “Replacing her mother isn’t—”
“She never knew her mother,” he said. “Any more than you did. She—” He spun quickly. “Abigail!”
I jumped, startled. “Oh my, I—”
Little feet bounded from the kitchen.
“Yes, Daddy?”
“Come here, bug,” he said, scooping her up with one arm and letting out a deep sigh. “I never thought I’d ever find anyone to live their lives with us,” he said, looking at her seriously as she matched his expression. “That anyone would ever be worthy of you. But what do you think of Miss Josie? Not just for Christmas, but in our family for real?”
“Forever?”
“Forever,” he echoed.
Abigail slid her gaze to mine, full of so much personality, then back to her dad.
“She didn’t know her mommy, either. She’s a half orphan, like me,” she said, making me dig my nails into my palms to keep it together. Oh, this girl would surely break my heart, too.
He looked at me and swallowed, hard. “Trust me, Josie,” he said quietly, pleading with his eyes. “Trust this.”
In front of me was what could be my future. My family. Ben looking at me so intently, my skin felt like it might catch fire.
“Will you share your secret place with me?” she asked. “In the stable?”
I chuckled and swiped under my eyes. “If I can come sit in the library with you sometimes?”
Abigail nodded, her curls making it a full-motion activity.
“Deal.”
I started to laugh nervously, blinking more tears free and thinking I hadn’t cried this much in years, but the anxious, expectant look on his face was priceless. I shrugged at the sheer simplicity of it.
“Deal,” I whispered.
“Can I go back to the cookies, Daddy?” she whispered loudly.
He set her down and crossed the space to me in seconds as the sound of her steps pattered away, and my hands could finally go up around his neck and into his hair.
“Yes?” he breathed.
“Yes.”
Chapter 16
1904
Josie
“Josephine Bancroft Mason,” I whispered, testing the sound of it on my tongue. “Josie Mason. Mrs. Benjamin Mason.”
It was all very bizarre and exciting. This morning, as I’d awakened on my birthday to Lila bringing me breakfast, I’d hardly expected to be married by evening.
I gazed down at my left hand, where my mother’s wedding band now resided. At the still beautiful white satin and lace dress that now lay across the chaise in Ben’s—in our bedroom.
Our bedroom. In Ben’s house, that was my home now, too.
Married.
Me.
On Christmas Eve.
The very second I’d said yes, the day had turned into a whirlwind. Ben sent people to attend to every need. Theodore went for Lila, who then went back and forth twice more for my mother’s ring and wedding dress, not allowing me to help her in the name of my birthday. Another went to find someone to marry us. Yet another brought us food to stay in and snack on all day, and Mrs. Shannon—who I could already tell was Abigail’s very special version of my Lila—whipped us up a wedding cake. A simple one, granted, but in the midst of Christmas baking, I called it a miracle.
Then I’d married Benjamin Mason.
And he’d married me.
What?
I