Christmas Kisses (Romance on the Ranch Series #5) Read online

  Harris, Eli, and Morgan yelled thanks to their mom and then shouted for joy as they raced across the drive on a perfect spring Saturday.

  Six months pregnant and with her youngest son, two year old Austin on her hip, Tooty waited until her boys had reached the tree house Sage Tanner and Jackson Martinez had just finished building a week earlier, before climbing her porch steps next to the wheelchair ramp for her husband.

  "I wanna pway wid brothers," Austin pouted.

  "Honey, after I let daddy know we're home I'll take you to play."

  "Otay, Mommy."

  On the porch Tooty set Austin down and juggled the grocery sack so she could open the front door. Glancing around, she made a mental note to water the bulbs in her window boxes and sweep the debris that had blown across the porch. Although Miles insisted that she hire help for the innumerable chores necessary for their family of six—soon to be seven, she enjoyed working around the home she had inherited before marrying Miles, and which they had expanded upon by adding three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a family room, an office, and modernizing the kitchen. The additions were larger than the original house.

  "Miles! I'm home!" Tooty called as Austin ran to find his daddy. "I ordered the new blinds for our bedroom. I can't wait 'til they arrive." She entered the kitchen.

  Austin had already climbed onto his father's lap and was grinning from ear-to-ear as he reached for a cookie on a platter in the center of the table. The strange expression on Miles' face while he talked on his cell phone alerted Tooty to the fact that something was wrong. Her heart dropped. Had someone been hurt? Lifting Austin off his lap, she carried him and his cookie to the family room to play with the myriad of toys always scattered about.

  When she returned, Miles was saying into his phone, "Hmm. The guy's a rat. Are you going to pursue legal action if you find him?"

  Tooty walked to the sink, poured herself a glass of water, and then sat across from Miles.

  He glanced at her, shook his head and said, "Monica, let me think about your situation and then I'll call you back."

  Tooty's eyes rounded. Monica! She jerked her hand to her mouth in surprise.

  Miles watched her reaction and slowly nodded that it was the same person Tooty suspected.

  Snotty Monica, my husband's ex-girlfriend is calling him!

  Miles said, "Don't cry. Everything will work out." He listened and finished with, "Try not to worry. I'll talk to you soon." He touched the screen of his cell phone to disconnect and shook his head again. "I can't believe it."

  Tooty, on pins and needles, waited for him to spill the beans.

  "Give me just a minute," he said, and rolled his wheelchair to the counter to pour a cup of coffee. After opening the fridge and dousing a healthy dose of cream into his cup, he returned to the table and sipped.

  Tooty said, "Miles, if you keep me in suspense much longer, I'm going to scream."

  Her husband set his cup down. "Monica is broke, homeless, and…three months pregnant."

  "What!" Tooty's eyes rounded like saucers.

  "Seems she got involved with some smooth talker who convinced her that he was an investment banker, and after they'd lived together for some months, she invested all of her funds in what she thought was a high yielding account. A few days later the scumbag left her high and dry and the authorities think he skipped the country. Then, within the same week, her company downsized and laid her off." Miles wasn't finished, "And the next week she discovered she was pregnant after she got an eviction notice because 'scum bag' hadn't paid the rent like he'd said."

  Tooty held her hands to her cheeks in shock. "What's she going to do…about the baby, I mean?"

  Miles smiled and chuckled. "She surprised me there. She said she's going to keep this baby no matter what. She said if I could survive having so many children, she could survive having just one."

  Still shocked, Tooty asked, "Why is she calling you? Does she want to borrow money?"

  "Actually, no. I offered to give her a loan, but she refused. She said the reason she'd called, other than having a shoulder to cry on, was to ask if I had any connections for a new job. She said she's been applying for positions for a month, with no luck, and I was the only friend she could think to call."

  "Well, that doesn't surprise me. Her not having friends, I mean. So she hasn't contacted your mom or dad?"

  "No. She said she hasn't spoken with them in over a year and now she's too mortified to do so."

  "Well, as you know, she's not on my list of favorite people after that stunt she pulled in New York. She wanted me to feel like a hick at that fancy restaurant, and I sure did, but I'm not so vindictive as to not want things to turn out well for her. I know what it's like to be alone, pregnant, and rejected by the father of your child."

  Miles reached his hand across the small table and clasped hers. "But I'm eternally grateful that Harris' father turned out to be such a lowlife. I love you, Tooty, and I love Harris like my own son."

  Tooty lifted the hand of the father of Eli, Morgan, and Austin and their teeny bun still in the oven, and kissed it.

  Abby: Mail Order Bride (Excerpt)

  Chapter One: Finding Courage

  Abigail picked up the newspaper advertisement for the hundredth time, read it again, reread it, and tossed it back on the desk in her library. Smoothing her hand over the sides of her auburn hair and the bun at the nape of her neck, she pushed her chair back and walked from the library to the parlor. Pacing the length of the lovely room, she stopped occasionally to straighten a vase or lift a family photo, all the while contemplating something so crazy it made her heart pound.

  After an hour, she squared her shoulders, returned to the library, sat at her desk, slipped a piece of stationary from the drawer, reached for her ink and quill, and wrote:

  March 18, 1886

  Dear Mr. Samson,

  I am writing to introduce myself. My name is Abigail Mary Vaughn and I read your classified advertisement in the Philadelphia Inquirer seeking a wife to help raise your three children. I would like to recommend myself. By trade, I am a teacher and that would benefit your children.

  I have never been married and I am thirty-eight years old. I have lived in Philadelphia all my life and taught school for the past eighteen years. I am an only child and my parents died last year so there are no responsibilities keeping me here. I have always desired my own family, but circumstances of caring for my elderly parents prevented that.

  I do not believe in withholding information, so I have been candid in my response to you. I hope to hear from you.

  —Miss Abigail Mary Vaughn

  Before she could react and change her mind, Abigail enclosed the letter in an envelope and asked Harry Puffins, her old servant, to walk it to the post office not far from her home near the city's center.

  *

  Brant removed his cowboy hat and ran a hand through hair as black as coal. Standing in front of the blacksmith's where he'd just had his horse shod, he heard his daughter calling from the entrance to Clyde Jenkins General Store across the street. Clyde, being the most likely candidate, was also the postmaster for the central eastern Texas town of Two Rivers. Jenny held her baby brother in one arm and waved letters in the other. "Hey Pa, you got more mail. Maybe you'll find us a Ma in this bunch."

  Brant paused while a buckboard pulled by a swayback horse ambled past. He waved at old Mr. and Mrs. Snodgrass and then crossed to the warped boardwalk that ran in front of a dozen businesses. "Jenny, did you give Mr. Jenkins that list of staples so we can pick them up next trip to town?"

  "Yes sir." She shifted two year old Ty to her other hip. "One of the letters came all the way from Philadelphia."

  "I'll read them tonight. Where's Luke?"

  "He's still talking to Mr. Jenkins about ordering some more dime novels."

  Brant bent and kissed his baby's forehead. "Well, run in and tell him it's time to go while I hitch Sugar back to the buckboard and bring it around. We've got chores to finish u
p."

  "Sure, Pa."

  Several minutes after Brant had pulled the wagon in front of the store, his fourteen year old son sauntered out. Inhaling a calming breath, he said, "It's nice you could join us, Luke. I'd sure like to get home before nightfall. If not, you'll be mucking the barn in the dark."

  With a sullen look, Luke hopped onto the back of the wagon and sat on a sack of grain. Jenny snickered and Ty scrambled to sit on his big brother's lap. Brant flicked the reins. "Giddup."

  After a long evening of chores, Brant finally collapsed into his favorite chair and propped his feet on the hearth. He could hear Jenny telling Ty a bedtime story in the room she shared with her baby brother. No doubt Luke was in the loft devouring another cheap novel.

  Leaning his head back, he surveyed his cabin. Besides his bedroom and Jenny's room, there was an additional bedroom that his mail order bride would stay in until they got to know each other. His plan to remarry scared the bejesus out of him, but he was dead set to find a ma for his children. He closed his eyes and saw Molly's laughing face. God, he missed her. How he'd loved her. His eyes stung and he blinked rapidly, glancing again around the combined living, dining, and cooking area that still held her touches in the curtains and knickknacks. Although modest, the cabin was sturdily built from the labor of his own hands.

  Unable to put it off any longer, he unfolded his lanky frame and reached for the letters he'd tossed on the mantel. Sighing, he read more responses to his advertisement, none of which he felt any inkling to respond to. Damn, but the thought of marrying someone he'd come to know through a newspaper ad irked him. However, his children needed a mother. Jenny did the best she could caring for Ty, but she was only ten years old. Guilt plagued him at the responsibility that had been forced on her. As for Luke, Brant hadn't been able to bond with his son since Molly's death, and now the boy lost himself in dime novels. And Ty, his baby, God help him, needed a mother's care.

  He fingered the letter from Philadelphia. He'd placed ads in newspapers, local and cross country, and wondered if the call of the West would provoke responses from city girls. He'd received a few, but from the tone of their letters, they'd seemed too high and mighty to live in a humble cabin on a small ranch. He slipped a thumb under the envelope flap and ripped it open. The letter was short and written on quality stationary in neat printing. He read it a couple of times.

  Going to his room, he retrieved a paper and his quill and ink and brought the kerosene lamp to the dining table. Tapping his jaw, he thought about his response.

  May 1, 1886

  Dear Miss Vaughn,

  Thank you for your letter and also your forthrightness. Please tell me more about yourself and why you would want to marry someone you have never met and mother children that are not your own.

  As for myself, I will also be forthcoming. I am solely seeking a mother for my children. If you have romantic notions, I am not the husband for you. My wife died over a year ago from lung fever. I have two sons, a fourteen year old and a two year old, and a ten year old daughter. My ranch is small, as is my cabin, so if you are looking for anything else, I suggest you not respond to this letter.

  As for your qualifications, they are excellent. My eldest son loves reading. I can hardly get him to complete his chores without a book in hand. My daughter is very smart and an avid learner. Both children attended school until their mother died. My eldest son now helps me on the ranch and my daughter cares for her baby brother. My desire is for them to return to school after I marry. I am the son of a teacher so I know the importance of education.

  As for Two Rivers, it is a small town that does not have much in the way of diversion to keep folks interested.

  So, as you can see, I have not painted a pretty picture. I have written the truth so as not to waste your time or mine.

  —Brant Samson

  Novels and Novellas by Verna Clay

  WESTERN ROMANCE

  Contemporary

  Romance on the Ranch Series

  Dream Kisses

  Honey Kisses

  Baby Kisses

  Candy Kisses

  Christmas Kisses

  Coming 2014!

  Oasis Series

  Stranded in Oasis (January 2014)

  Branded in Oasis (May 2014)

  Landed in Oasis (August 2014)

  Historic

  Unconventional Series

  Abby: Mail Order Bride

  Broken Angel

  Ryder's Salvation

  Finding Home Series

  Cry of the West: Hallie

  Rescue on the Rio: Lilah

  Missouri Challenge: Daisy

  FANTASY ROMANCE

  Shapeling Trilogy

  Roth: Book One: Protector

  Fawn: Book Two: Master

  Davide: Book Three: Prince

  11:11: Countdown to 2012

  The Theory of Everything