An Old-Fashioned Christmas Romance Collection Read online

  Brynne clasped both hands under her chin. “Oh, how dreadful,” she sighed, shaking her head. “I heard how your folks volunteered to travel south, to interview the seminarian who would replace Pastor Zaph.”

  Tears shimmered in her eyes as she absently stroked a scratch on the tabletop, the nonchalant action, it seemed to Clay, an intent to hide her tender side from him. It touched him deeply that she would cry for his losses when she’d suffered so many of her own.

  “So much death and destruction. So much suffering,” Brynne was saying, more to herself than to Clay. “I wonder if, when it’s over, either side will think it was worth it.”

  He had heard what happened to her father. To her brother Edward. To her precious Moorewood. Yet there she sat, head up and shoulders back, determined to take it on the chin. What and who she was showed in her determined smile, in her warm brown eyes. Brynne Carter was a woman who cared deeply. What more proof did he need than the concern for his brother that brought her here today?

  Clay didn’t know what prompted him to do it, but he blanketed her hand with his own. “Now, about Cullen…”

  She looked at their hands, and he was pleased that she didn’t draw away. He was still more pleased when she put her free hand atop the stack of fingers. Brightening a bit, she smiled. “As a matter of fact, I have several ideas I’d like to discuss with you.”

  Grinning, Clay gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “I had a feeling you might.”

  Chapter 4

  June 1865

  When Sergeant Trevor Williams had left Moorewood in late February, he made two promises to Amelia: “Yes, Miz Carter, I’ll take good care of myself, and don’t you worry, if I hear anything about the Colonel, I’ll get a message to you.”

  Almost four months had now passed without a word from him—or any army official, for that matter. Not that Brynne was surprised. Amelia still insisted that her husband would return to them, but in Brynne’s heart, she knew she’d never see her father again. Sometimes, when the pain of her grief seemed too heavy to bear, Brynne wished that, like her mother, a little childlike faith beat in her heart.

  Because, oh, how she missed him! Not a day went by that she didn’t think of him, for there wasn’t a man like him on earth and likely would never be. If Papa were here, she thought, shaking her head at the irony, he’d know how to make Mama face the truth….

  Brynne had been taught both at home and in Sunday school that worrying never solved any problem. “Prayer, faith, and patience,” her father had always said, “are the ways to ease a troubled mind.”

  Well, she’d prayed morning, noon, and night that God would give her the words to help Amelia deal realistically with what had happened to Richard. And she’d clung to her faith, hoping the Almighty would answer those prayers. But day by day, it grew more obvious that Amelia could spend the rest of her life clinging to the hope that her husband would return. If only God would show the poor woman a sign!

  Having been born and bred in Christian fundamentals, Brynne couldn’t make herself believe the Lord had simply turned His back on her family. Compared to the war, Amelia’s delusions were a small problem; surely the Lord had plenty more important prayers to answer….

  Still, it had shaken her faith a bit that the Lord had not provided a solution to her mother’s problem. Brynne was feeling a bit lost. A little less trusting in the God who had promised peace to all those who put their troubles at the foot of the cross….

  Not once in her life had Brynne spoken a disrespectful word to her mother. But one evening, four months to the day after the Andersons’ baby was born, the day Trevor had brought them her father’s letter, all that changed.

  Amelia had visited little Jake at least a dozen times since bringing him into the world. “Just seeing the little tyke grow and thrive makes me feel better.” Just back from yet another visit, she hung her hat on the peg near the door. “It’s proof that life goes on, even as this horrible war rages on all around us.”

  Brynne wanted to point out that death was very much a part of life, because of the war. But she held her tongue. The subject of Richard’s survival was by now a sore point that both mother and daughter scrupulously avoided. Brynne could not understand how, after so many months with no word from her father—or about him—Amelia could still be so certain he was alive, that he would return.

  Her mother had not shed a tear, not while reading the letter Trevor delivered, not as she’d stuffed it back into its envelope. Instead, she’d held up her chin in stubborn denial of the obvious and shook her head.

  She was looking at Brynne that same way now, and Brynne didn’t know if she possessed the strength of character to continue pretending she shared her mother’s faith. Life had taught her that such naivete could only bring pain and disappointment.

  “Don’t wrinkle your brow at me, young lady,” her mother scolded. “You’re not too big to turn over my knee, you know.”

  Brynne sighed. “I mean no disrespect, Mama. It’s just…”

  “Just nothing! Remember what Jesus said: ‘If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you can say to that mountain, move, and it will move.’ ”

  “Papa isn’t Lazarus, Mama,” Brynne said dully, “Christ isn’t going to bring him back to life.”

  Amelia planted both hands on her hips. “If your father was dead, don’t you think I’d know it?” She pressed a fist to her chest. “He’s…he’s…”

  Her mother’s hesitation surprised Brynne, and she sat in stony silence as Amelia stared at an unknown spot beyond Brynne’s shoulder.

  For a time, soon after Richard’s letter had been delivered, she’d tried to share her mother’s unwavering optimism, but whenever her mood darkened, reality set in, and when it did, her father died anew in her tortured mind. And so she’d turned loose the dream that could never come true, and clung instead to the tried and true: Expect the worst, and when it comes, you can say “I told you so!” And if the worst never happens, it’ll be a blissful surprise.

  While Brynne had been daydreaming, Amelia had gathered her former resoluteness. “‘Christ isn’t going to bring Papa back to life,’ “she quoted Brynne. “Well, the disciples spoke just as plainly of Lazarus’s death.” She gave her words a moment to sink in. “And they were just as wrong.”

  Nodding, Brynne stared at her hands, folded in her lap. She knew the verse well, for she’d read it a hundred times since her father’s letter had been delivered: “And Martha fell at Jesus’s feet and said, ‘If you had been here, Lord, my brother would not have died,’ “Brynne quoted the book of John. She met Amelia’s dark eyes, unaware of the rage that rang in her voice. “Jesus wasn’t on that battlefield. If He had been, Papa wouldn’t be—”

  “I’m surprised, Brynne,” Amelia interrupted, “that I need to remind you the Lord is with us always, everywhere.”

  Expelling an exasperated sigh, Brynne closed her eyes in an attempt to summon patience. “If that’s true,” she said slowly, her voice quiet and cool, “how do you explain all those who died fighting, and your own son, who came home wounded beyond repair? How do you explain the destruction of the South and our beautiful Moorewood?” How do you explain the way Ross turned his back on his own people, on me, and…?

  Amelia wrapped her daughter in a hug and sighed. “I can’t explain it, Brynne, because I don’t understand it myself. But it isn’t our place to understand such things. God calls us to believe, nothing more.” Smiling gently, she cupped Brynne’s cheek. “I only know that God promises to give us the strength to bear up under any burden. ‘He will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the test, he will provide the way of escape, so you may be able to endure it.’ He knows our limits better than we do.”

  In a blinding flash, Brynne realized that Amelia needed to believe in the impossible every bit as much as Brynne needed to stare the truth straight in the eye. Could her mother’s heroic demeanor be a disguise that hid her true fears? If so, her mother needed loving support.

/>   “Your father will come back to us. I’m certain of it!”

  What harm can it do to pretend you share her sunny view? she asked herself. “Of course he will,” Brynne said, feigning a smile. “Now I really must get to bed. I have a busy day planned for my class tomorrow.”

  Amelia pressed a gentle kiss to Brynne’s forehead. “I was so proud when you suggested to Pastor Gentry that the congregation use our barn as a temporary church and school after the Yankees destroyed the church and school. The shed will be plenty big enough for Bessie until the new church is built.”

  Once, Bessie had been one of dozens of dairy cows that stood side by side in the big wooden structure. Now she stood alone in what was little more than a ramshackle lean-to behind the house. “True, but Bessie is awfully spoiled,” Brynne said, heading for the door. “I hope she doesn’t decide to stop producing milk, just to get even for being reassigned to such tiny quarters.”

  Smiling sadly, Amelia shook her head. “Goodness, Brynne, when did you become such a pessimist?”

  When our great nation was divided by a ridiculous war, Brynne wanted to say. When Edward came home mangled. When the list of the dead soldiers on the post office wall doubled, then tripled. When Ross chose money and social position over doing the right thing. When Papa’s letter came and…

  But remembering her decision to be loving and supportive for as long as her mother needed it, Brynne grinned and affectionately patted her mother’s hand. “I promise to try and keep my negative comments to a minimum, starting now.” She gave her mother a quick hug and a peck on the cheek. “Good night, Mama. I love you.” She hurried to her room, hoping that a good night’s sleep would help her continue the pretense tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.

  Brynne’s pessimism, as it turned out, had not been completely unfounded. Though Bessie dutifully continued to pour out an ample supply of milk, European support of the South dried up. Everyone, it seemed, was hungry and, according to all reports, desertion in Lee’s army had increased alarmingly.

  The Yankees were bored. There was little else for them to do but pillage and rampage and complain about the war that would not end. Rumor had it that Lee’s remaining veterans, despite their skilled—if not grim—determination, had spent the last of their fighting strength.

  Rumor became reality midmonth when word came by way of a fleeing Rebel soldier that on April second, the Confederate government, guarded by a stalwart few, fled Richmond by way of the railroad. By the fourth, said an article in a special edition of the Gazette, President Lincoln arrived, unescorted and unannounced, to inspect the grand old city, now under Union control. “Let ’em up easy,” he was quoted to have told General Grant. “Let ’em up easy.”

  But there was no letup, and by May tenth, the war that would not end officially ended.

  The suffering in the South did not end however. Hunger, homelessness, illness, and poverty afflicted people who, before the war, had never experienced physical or monetary discomfort. The Carters, like their neighbors all around them, attempted to get back to living life as they had prior to April 12, 1861, when the ten-inch mortar that screamed over Charleston Harbor blasted Fort Sumter.

  Brynne held tight to a hope of her own. Colonel Richard Carter had died a hero’s death and deserved a hero’s burial; someday, perhaps, his family could bury his remains in his favorite place…at the top of Kismet Hill, beside the scraggly pine that had somehow grown in a bed of rock.

  Chapter 5

  July 1865

  It wasn’t an easy hike to Kismet Hill, and Brynne had decided to spend the night there rather than making the long trek back before nightfall. She started out late in the afternoon and walked along the stream, as her father had taught her. Part of the beauty of this country, he’d always said, was that it never changed. Brynne recognized trees and trails she’d marked as a little girl, using her father’s big hunting knife as he supervised with a watchful eye. Finally, as the sun slid down the backside of Moore’s Peak, their special place opened up to her.

  Brynne sat on a fallen tree trunk, hands resting on her knees, and drank in the territory like a woman lost in the desert might suck at the wet lip of a canteen. This was where her father always came when he sought to escape life’s hectic pace or yearned for the privacy to thank God for his blessings. She’d been honored that he’d shared his secret place with her. Over time, it had become a place of respite for her, too. Since he’d left to fight for Moorewood, it had become a place to hide.

  Not until a cardinal peeped in a nearby tree did she rouse from her memory and begin setting up camp. The temperature here could dip low at night, even in summer, but Brynne had come prepared. Nature couldn’t do anything to her up here to equal what the war had done! She constructed a makeshift tent from an old blanket and several ropes, strung from low-hanging tree branches. If it rained, she’d climb inside. Otherwise, she’d sleep under the stars.

  Staring up at the shimmering darkness, she felt Richard’s presence. He’d been nothing but the poor son of a pig farmer when he met Amelia. “She fell for him like a lumberjack’s tree,” Grandpa Moore often said with a wink and a grin. “And so did the rest of the family. I saw brilliance peekin’ out from under that bent straw hat he wore, and decided to take a chance on it.”

  Richard, Grandpa insisted, had been born with a head for business. Less than two years after marrying George Moore’s only daughter, he’d tripled the worth of Moorewood. “It’s only fittin’ that it become yours when I leave this old world,” Grandpa had written in the letter accompanying his last will and testament.

  Brynne had often acknowledged her father’s intelligence, but it was his heart that she admired most. Yes, he’d slaughter pigs and sheep and cows to put meat on the table, and yes, he’d sell whole herds to assure there’d always be money to care for his family. He was a crack-shot hunter, too, but Brynne understood better than anyone how it pained him to take a life for any reason.

  They’d been here, on Kismet Hill, overlooking the valley when he’d spied a doe and two fawns in the distance. “Look there,” he’s whispered. “Isn’t it the most beautiful sight?”

  Puzzled by his awestruck expression, young Brynne had frowned. “But Papa,” she’d said, “you’re here to kill them.”

  He’d taken her face in his hands to say, “The Lord created every creature on earth for man’s benefit—some for food, others for coats and hats…” An eagle screeched overhead just then, and he’d said, “And some, we’re to admire from afar.” Gently chucking her under the chin, he’d winked. “It’s up to us to know when and how He means for us to use what He gave us.” Only then did he raise his rifle and fire.

  Brynne missed Richard more at that moment than in those first hard days after he’d left home. She and Clay Adams had been going for some long walks together. At first, they had discussed Cullen and his problems, but lately their conversations had ranged far and wide. On their last walk, Clay had held her hand, and Brynne had been filled with confusion ever since. If she’d come to her father for advice on the thoughts she’d been thinking about Clay Adams, he’d have known exactly what to say….

  Am I being foolish, she’d ask him, giving my heart away so soon after Ross’s betrayal? And do you think Clay will ever give his heart to me?

  She snuggled under the blankets she’d brought and smiled. Papa and Clay would have gotten along famously, she acknowledged, missing them both more than she cared to admit. Brynne remembered her first meeting with Clay, when she’d spelled out ways they might help Cullen learn to talk again.

  He hadn’t rejected a single one of her suggestions. Instead, Clay had nodded in agreement with everything she’d said, right down to and including her idea that he start attending church services again.

  “Haven’t been inside a church in a while,” he’d admitted on a heavy sigh, “but if you believe it’ll help the boy, I’ll give it a try.”

  “Someday, perhaps you’ll tell me why you’ve stayed away so long,”
she’d said.

  An array of emotions had flickered over his handsome, mustachioed face in response to her simple request. Like storm clouds that blot out the sun, his secret reasons dimmed the light in his blue eyes. The furrow between his brows deepened, and the corners of his mouth turned down. His soft, rich voice took on a hard cold edge, like a blade scraping across a dry stone. “Don’t hold your breath,” he’d grated. But his hand had still been sandwiched between hers when he’d said it, as if he hoped that “someday” would indeed come.

  With her heart and head full of these memories, Brynne slept deeply for the first time in months. When she woke at dawn, she felt as though she’d slept six nights instead of one. She sat up to stretch and breathe in the sharp pure scent of pine.

  She got onto her knees and faced the sun. “Dear Lord,” she prayed, hands folded and face tilted toward the heavens, “thank You for a night of peaceful slumber. Thank You for this glorious morning and this beautiful view and everything else You’ve given me. Bless this day, and see that I do Your will throughout it. Amen.”

  When she was finished, Brynne set about the business of having breakfast. Poking at her smoldering campfire, she carefully placed dried leaves and sticks atop the coals and blew gently until they glowed red. When the tiny flames licked at the twigs, she added larger limbs, until the fire blazed hot and bright. Now Brynne dumped a handful of coffee grounds into the bottom of a blue-speckled pot and poured fresh mountain spring water over them. While she waited for it to bubble, she tore off a chunk of bread and popped it into her mouth as she looked out over the valley beyond.

  Tears stung her eyes as she surveyed the pristine scene. “How could anyone plant their boots on ground like this and not believe in God?” Richard had said. Brynne couldn’t help but agree, for only a powerful and mighty Being could have created anything so vast and magnificent. The vista was an explosion of color and scent, from the sun-glinted hilltops to the twisting aqua river below, from the pale azure sky to the pillowy green of faraway treetops.