TheSurpriseChristmasBride Read online

  MAUREEN CHILD

  The Surprise Christmas Bride

  To the gang at Sunshine Books:

  Nita, Betty and Ron.

  You guys are the best.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Epilogue

  One

  “Maybe I should put the top up before I drown.”

  Casey Oakes pushed wet hair out of her eyes and squinted into the freezing rain. A deep hard shiver rippled through her. “Too late now to bother,” she grumbled, and told herself that maybe it would be a blessing if she diddrown. At least then she would have done something no other Oakes had ever managed. Drowning in a convertible while cruising the back roads outside Simpson, California, wasn’t, as her mother would say, “what society expects of an Oakes.”

  Accomplishing that feat in a wedding gown would only add to the myth, she told herself. A few years from now, her little ride would probably become the stuff of local folklore. People would tell the story of Cassandra Oakes in hushed tones around campfires. Parents would discipline misbehaving children with the threat of a nighttime visit from the Drowned Bride.

  Still smiling to herself, Casey flinched when her soggy veil flew in front of her face and blocked her view of the road. She slammed on the brakes, heard something under her car snap, then came to a shuddering halt.

  She cut the engine, and when that powerful noise disappeared, all that was left was the sound of the heavy rain pelting on and all around her. The windshield wipers continued to slap rhythmically as they futilely tried to do battle with the downpour. Nearly an inch of water covered the floorboards, no doubt ruining the plush scarlet carpet. Casey winced as she realized that the leather seats probably weren’t faring any better.

  “Well, hell,” she muttered to no one, “who expected rain?” But then, with the way the rest of her day had gone, why notrain? Heck, why not a blizzard?

  Reaching up, she pushed her veil to the back of her head and looked around at the drenched countryside. The road wasn’t much more than a narrow dirt track, covered yearly by a thin layer of gravel. Now the ground-up rock was practically floating atop a sea of churning mud. On either side of the road wooden fence posts, strung with barbed wire, stood at attention for miles. Behind those fences lay open ground. Meadow grasses, waving and dipping with the wind and rain, a few gnarled leafless trees that looked as though they’d been there for centuries, a veritable forest of giant pines, their needles dipping with the weight of the rain—and that was it.

  No houses.

  No lights.

  No people.

  To top it all off, it had been so long since she’d been back in Simpson she didn’t know if she was close to the Parrish ranch or not.

  Casey inhaled sharply and felt the familiar sting of tears filling her eyes. Roughly she brushed them away with the backs of her hands.

  She already had all the water she could handle.

  Then she heard it.

  The call came softly at first, then built into a low throbbing moan.

  Frowning, Casey stepped out of the car and grimaced as the cold mud oozed over the tops of her white satin pumps. When her right foot slid out from under her in the muck, she forgot all about her ruined shoes. She grabbed at the car door for balance and managed somehow to keep from landing facedown in the thick brown river at her feet.

  “Yuck.” A sucking noise accompanied the movement as she lifted one shoeless foot from the icy mud. She heard the moaning sound again and turned her head to find the source.

  Her eyes widened and a rush of sympathy for something besides herself washed over her.

  “Oh, you poor little thing,” she crooned, and started slogging through the mud.

  “No, I don’t want to tell you what it is.” Jake Parrish laughed, shook his head and reached for his coffee cup. His sister, Annie, hadn’t changed a bit over the years. Grown-up or not, she still couldn’t stand suspense.

  “C’mon Jake,” she pleaded over the phone. “One little hint. Just one.”

  “Nope,” he told her, and took a sip of coffee. “You’ll just have to get out here first thing in the morning if you want your curiosity satisfied.”

  “You really are an evil man, big brother.”

  “Yeah, I know.” He grinned, then added, “Oh, and would you mind bringing Dad, Uncle Harry and Aunt Emma, too?”

  Annie sucked in a gulp of air and Jake could almost see his younger sister’s black eyebrows shooting into her hairline. Lord, how she hated not knowing everything.

  “This must be big,” she finally said.

  “Big enough,” Jake assured her.

  “Dammit, Jake!” Annie’s voice dropped into the stern no-nonsense tone she used on her three-year-old, Lisa. “You know I hate surprises. If you don’t give me something to go on, I won’t get a wink of sleep all night.”

  She wouldn’t, either. Memories rushed through him. The night before her birthday, Annie would lie awake all night, wondering what she might receive. And Christmas Eve was even worse. Then she was so bad not only did shestay awake, she kept Jake up, too.

  “All right,” he said with a smile. “One little hint.”

  “Yesss!”

  Jake frowned thoughtfully as he tried to figure out a way to phrase the hint without giving away too much of his surprise. He leaned back against the kitchen wall, crossed his feet at the ankles and stared up at the overhead light fixture. Shaped like a wagon wheel, the chandelier held six globe-covered lightbulbs, which shone brightly against the late-afternoon gloom.

  He shifted his gaze to the storm raging outside the window. Thanks to the deal he’d just managed to pull off, he told himself, not even the torrential rain or predicted snow could ruin his good mood.

  “Jake…”

  “Oh! Sorry, Annie. Just thinkin’.”

  “Don’t strain yourself.”

  “Very funny. Maybe I won’t give you that hint, after all.”

  “Jake Parrish, if you don’t…”

  He laughed and pushed away from the wall. “OK, you win. Here’s your hint. It’s something I’ve wanted for a long time.”

  A lengthy silent pause. Then, “that’s it?” Outrage colored her voice.

  “That’s it. Until tomorrow.”

  “I said it before and I’ll say it again. You’re an evil man, Jake. And you’re going to hell.”

  “Probably. But that’s all right. At least all of my friends will be there with me.”

  “Count on it.”

  In answer he gave her a deep-throated malevolent chuckle. He wasn’t surprised to hear her hang up in disgust.

  Oh, he knew his little sister would find a way to make him pay for dragging this out. But dammit, it would be worth it. He’d waited a long time for this. And he wanted to enjoy every minute of it.

  He hung up the phone, walked across the room to the gray granite countertop and set his coffee cup down. Then he leaned forward to peer through the rain-spattered glass at the growing darkness. This was just the beginning, he told himself.

  With the conclusion of this deal, his long-held plans for the Parrish ranch were complete at last. Now he could focus on the horse-breeding program he’d been thinking about for months.

  Anything was possible.

  A slow grin tipped up one corner of his mouth as he took a quick look around the kitchen. Modern appliances, a gleaming Spanish-til
e floor and a kiva-shaped fireplace in the corner made the kitchen something of a showplace. Not that he could do anything more complicated than a pot of coffee, grilled cheese sandwiches and an assortment of microwavable delights.

  That didn’t matter, though. For Jake had made good on his promises. He had turned the ranch into a business prosperous enough to pay off all the cosmetic changes to the house that his ex-wife had insisted on. And despite Linda’s efforts, she hadn’t managed to empty his pockets.

  Jake frowned slightly at the memory of the woman he had allowed to make a fool of him, but then he dismissed all thoughts of her. Instead, he concentrated on the ranch. His accomplishment. His triumph. The place was now a far cry from how it had looked while he and Annie had been growing up.

  In his mind’s eye he could still see the antique stove his mother had somehow coaxed into working long beyond the time it should have. If he tried hard enough, he could make out the shadow of the battered pine table where he and then Annie had done their schoolwork. The same table where the family had gathered at suppertime for loud long discussions on everything from the Chicago Cubs to Darwin.

  Jake blinked, and in place of that old familiar table was the heavy Santa Fe style polished-oak dining set Linda had purchased three years before. He frowned thoughtfully. True, the ranch hadn’t had much in the way of comforts when he was a kid. But there was always enough love.

  The one thing his new and improved ranch house lacked.

  Jake shook his head and reached for his coffee cup. He took one last drink of the still-hot brew, then slammed the cup back down onto the counter. Keep your mind on business, he told himself. Thoughts of love and what-might-have-beens wouldn’t get his work done.

  And thoughts of Linda would only give him an ulcer.

  “Besides,” he said aloud into the empty room, “you’ve got to check the fencing before nightfall.” With the rain and the howling wind, he couldn’t risk wires coming down and his stock wandering out onto the roads.

  Besides, if the weatherman was right for a change and the first snow of the season was really headed in that night, then he’d best keep ahead of the chores.

  He snatched his rain slicker and hat from the pegs near the back door and pulled them on, purposely keeping his back to the shiny sterile room. The sooner he was started, the sooner he’d be back. With a microwaved pizza, a beer and a front-row seat for the football game on TV.

  If he kept the volume loud enough, he just might be able to convince himself that he wasn’t really lonely.

  “I know just how you feel,” Casey told the little animal, and reached down to grab another handful of wet white lace. Draping the fabric across the calf’s shivering body, she hovered over him, blocking most of the rain with her back. She stroked his neck and looked into his sad brown eyes. “It’s no fun being cold and wet and alone, is it, pal?”

  The calf snorted.

  “Gesundheit,” Casey said automatically, then blew fruitlessly at a sopping-wet lock of blond hair hanging in front of her right eye. She didn’t want to let go of the calf long enough to shove her hair and what was left of her veil off her face. The poor little thing was so scared it would probably take off, and she’d never manage to catch it again, running in the mud.

  The trembling calf shifted position, leaning into her. She staggered under its surprising weight and looked back into those big brown eyes. “Do you know something? Your eyes are a lot like my fiancé’s. Or rather, my ex-fiancé’s.” She frowned slightly before adding, “But don’t worry, I won’t hold that against you. They look better on you, anyway.”

  The animal snorted and bawled again.

  “I felt like crying myself earlier,” she murmured sympathetically. “You might not know this, but I was supposed to get married today.”

  Her little friend shivered heavily.

  “I know. It gives me cold chills just to think about it now.” Casey leaned down and rubbed her cheek against the back of the animal’s head. Her feet felt like two blocks of muddy ice and she was beginning to lose feeling in her fingers altogether. Stupid weather. Trying to ignore her own discomfort, she kept talking to her little friend. “The worst part was telling everyone that there wouldn’t be a wedding. You should have seen their faces, pal.”

  He mooed quietly.

  “Who?” she asked with a choked laugh. “The people in the church, of course.” She sniffed. “And my parents. It’s a good thing for Steven that his note said he was going to Mexico. If my father had been able to get his hands on that jerk…” She sighed and lifted her head to look at her new friend again. “It’s not every day a girl gets jilted, you know. Don’t you think I should be feeling worse than I am about all this?”

  The calf shook its head.

  “I don’t, either,” Casey’s fingers stroked the animal’s rough yet smooth hide. She shivered hard before saying, “Now don’t be offended because I said your eyes were like Steven’s. It’s not your fault, after all. Besides,” she pointed out with a wry smile, “you seem to have a much more pleasant personality.”

  The calf moved and stomped on her toes.

  She yelped and dragged her foot out from under the animal’s hoof. “You dance like Steven, too.”

  The wind kicked up, snatching at her veil and flinging it out around her. “I know it’s hard to believe now,” she told the squirming calf, “but a few hours ago, I looked pretty good.”

  An image leaped in her brain. Of her, standing at the back of the church, waiting for her cue to start down the incredibly long pine-bough-decorated aisle at her father’s side. She’d looked at her ten maids of honor lined up in front of her and realized she didn’t really knowany of them.

  Oh, they went to the same functions. Told the same stories. Laughed at the same jokes. But not one of those ten women would she have considered a friend. Then it had struck her that the one real friend she had wasn’t even attending her wedding. Annie had refused to watch her friend make what she called a “giant mistake.”

  The doubts she’d been battling for months had risen in her again. But then the organ music had started, swelling out into the church and stealing away her breath. The first bridesmaid had been about to start her staggered walk down the aisle when an usher had brought Casey the note from Steven.

  During the next few interminably long minutes, she’d endured curious stares, hushed whispers and even a muffled laugh or two. She hadn’t been able to find a friendly face anywhere in the crowd of surprised disappointed guests.

  Even her parents had been too stunned to offer comfort to her. Her father, grim-faced and tight-lipped, stood awkwardly patting her mother’s shoulder as she wept quietly into her hanky. The twins, Casey’s older brothers, looked as though they just wanted to find someone to punch.

  Naturally, when she ran out of the church a few minutes later and jumped into her sports car—which one of her brothers had thoughtfully driven to the church—she’d instinctively headed for her one real friend.

  The only person she could count on to listen to her. To tell her that she wasn’t crazy. That she was right to feel as though she’d just escaped from prison.

  Annie Parrish.

  Casey yanked her full skirt a little higher over the animal’s back and told herself that all she had to do now was find the Parrish ranch. Hopefully before she froze to death. It had been only five years since her family had moved out of Simpson. Why did everything look so different?

  The rain, she thought. She was only disoriented because of the rain. When the storm passed, she would find the ranch. Ifthe storm passed, her mind added silently. She glanced up at the black clouds overhead, noted the wind-whipped trees surrounding the meadow and fought down her first thread of worry. For all she knew, it could start snowing any minute. By morning she would be nothing more than the ice statue of a haggard-looking bride.

  The Irish lace and ivory silk dress she wore felt as though it weighed five hundred pounds. The fabric had soaked up the rain like a dime-store
sponge, and the heavy mud along the hemline wasn’t helping the situation any. Idly she wondered what the gown’s designer would say if she could see her creation now.

  The world’s most expensive tent for water-logged calves.

  And what, Casey asked herself, would her father say?

  She groaned quietly and closed her eyes for a second or two. Henderson Oakes wasn’t going to be a happy man for quite a while. No doubt he would take Casey’s being jilted as a personal affront. Though basically good people, her parents were far more concerned about how things looked than with how things really were.

  Better not to even think about them yet.

  The rain came down harder and began to feel like a thousand cold knives stabbing her body. Her back ached from hunching over the calf. Her arms were scratched from clawing her way through barbed wire to rescue the little beast. She’d lost one shoe to the muck and she definitely felt a cold coming on.

  With any luck it would develop into pneumonia.

  “Here comes the bride,” she sang softly, then stopped abruptly. If she wasn’t so blasted tired and if she wasn’t afraid she’d sink neck deep in mud, Casey would have plopped right down on the ground and had a good cry.

  “What in hellare you doing, lady?”

  The deep gravelly voice seemed to come out of nowhere. She jumped, staggered and fell across the calf’s sturdy little body. Throwing one hand down onto the muddy ground, Casey broke her fall and ignored the tiny twinge of pain that shot through her wrist. She cocked her head to one side and looked through her veil’s saturated netting at a man on a horse.

  Finally. Help.

  At least she hoped it was help.

  She really had to start paying more attention to her surroundings. She’d been so wrapped up in her own thoughts she hadn’t even heard the horse and rider approach.

  Pushing herself upright, Casey kept one hand on the calf and looked at the man carefully. His hat was pulled down low on his forehead, and an olive green rain slicker covered the rest of him, except for his lower legs and the worn boots shoved into stirrups.