Gingham Bride - By Jillian Hart Page 0,68
to know. “Will you move north if you get a job at the mill?”
“I need wages, lass, but I can ride the five-mile stretch and live here.”
Why could she see the colors of his dreams? Green like the fields in May, sapphire-blue like the Montana summer sky and dotted with horses of every color, their velvet coats gleaming in the sun. “You will work to buy horses again. To build another stable.”
“Once, we had more than two hundred horses grazing on our land. More than a few of them were champions. Now, the twelve are all I have left.”
She felt his loss, not for the former prestige of his family but for the horses he had loved. “You helped to raise and train them, didn’t you?”
“The hardest losses are of the heart, it’s true.” His throat worked, and his jaw turned to iron. “The horses I have left were the ones I could not part with.”
“Where are they now?”
“A neighbor is boarding them for me. He’s a good friend, and he bought all of my family’s land. It is his house where my grandmother is staying.”
“Have you heard from her?”
“No, but I expect a letter in the mail any day. This is the first Christmas we will spend apart.”
“What was Christmas like for your family?”
“Nana would always serve a roasted duck, candied yams and her mother’s baked bean recipe. Buttermilk biscuits light enough to float in midair. Hot chocolate and angel food cake afterward by the fire. That was Christmas dinner.”
“You mean there is more?”
“Presents piled under the tree. Christmas Eve service the night before, of course. We would have dinner in town at the hotel after a day of stringing popcorn and making cookies. When I was a little tyke, I would help my mother decorate the Christmas cookies. After she passed, Nana and I carried on the tradition. Nana would spend part of both days playing Christmas carols on her piano. We would gather round with eggnog or tea and sing until we were hoarse.”
“You have lived a dream, Ian. Or at least, a dream to some people.”
“I’ll not argue.” The rundown shanty where Fiona’s friend lived came into sight, the few windows glowing across the ever darkening landscape. He gave Flannigan more rein, letting the horse run some, as he seemed to want to do.
“One day I pray you have that again.” Her hand covered his, and through the layers of wool and leather, he could feel the depth of her wish for him.
The heavens were kind to him and saved him from answering, for the driveway rolled into sight and beyond that the joyless shanty with one window aglow with light.
“We’re home.” She breathed the words out like a sigh, and it was as if the twilight fell with her happiness.
“I pray that one day home will be a welcome place for you, pretty girl.” He reined the horse toward the barn, drawing him gently in from his run. Because he did not want to reveal anything more, he let silence settle between them. Her hand remained on his until the sled came to a stop.
“Next time, Fee, be kinder to the poor young men who have lost their hearts to you.” He dragged away from her side, hating to put distance between them.
“What are you talking about?” She scowled, her face scrunching up adorably.
Sad that he was falling ever harder for her. Love was not finite, he realized. It was an infinite place that kept pulling a man apart. Resigned, he offered to help her from the sled, but she hopped out on the other side.
“Lorenzo.” He patted Flannigan before kneeling to unbuckle the harnessing. “And those other school boys. What were their names? James and Luken and that blond-headed kid.”
“Funny. What could have possibly given you the idea that half the graduating class of boys is carrying a torch for me? Surely.” She rolled her eyes, laughing at him, unaware of the doting man who stood right in front of her. Of course she had not noticed the others, either.
“I am telling you the truth.” He worked one buckle free and circled around for another. “You are breaking hearts, Fiona, right and left. Think of the poor fellows, would you? It is all I am asking.”
“No one is ever going to love me.” She looked vulnerable in the thickening twilight, certain as she tucked her Bible into the crook of her arm. “I don’t intend to let anyone close enough to try.”
“What? Not even