A Bride For Abel Greene (16 page)
Read A Bride For Abel Greene Online
Authors: Cindy Gerard
She shook her head, self-disgust weighing down like lead. “The day I ran across your ad was the day I threw in the towel. I wasn’t just thinking about Mark when I answered it. I was thinking about me, too. I saw a chance for someone else to share the load. I saw a chance to be taken care of instead of always being the caretaker.”
She turned to him them, tears brimming. “Selfless? No. I came here because I wanted to dump the entire tired mess of my life on someone else. It was calculated. And it was self-serving. And it makes me ashamed.”
He rose and went to her. “What it makes you,” he said, touching a hand to her hair, “is human. With human weakness and human need. And what it makes me is damn lucky that I was the dump site.”
His gentle smile was coaxing. “You love your brother, Mackenzie. No one—especially you—should ever doubt that. You saved his life when you brought him here.” He curled a knuckle under her chin. “And don’t ever doubt you saved mine, too.”
Ten
T
he next morning Abel rode his snowmobile over to Crimson Falls and brought Mark home. It was time, Abel said to him, to become a family.
he next morning Abel rode his snowmobile over to Crimson Falls and brought Mark home. It was time, Abel said to him, to become a family.
Mark was a little edgy at first. Mackenzie suspected it was because he was trying to get a feel for his new role in Mackenzie’s life. He seemed to relax later in the day as he sensed that his status hadn’t changed. She relaxed, too. He was still her little brother, and despite her feelings of guilt over her motives, she loved him and knew she would fight for his life again if it ever came to that.
As for Mackenzie, she felt safe and cared for and totally in love. She was completely enamored with her husband and the winter wonderland that was Legend Lake.
Two days after Mark’s return, it was Christmas Eve. The following day they would join Scarlett and Casey at the hotel for dinner, and later in the week they’d all get together with Maggie and J.D., who were returning to the lake after spending the holiday with J.D.’s family in the Cities.
But tonight, Christmas Eve, was theirs.
The three of them had made a pact. Since both Mark and Mackenzie were flat broke, Abel wasn’t allowed to spend any money on them. The gifts they ended up exchanging turned out to be far more special than anything money could have bought.
And the memories they made as they sat on the floor around the tree to open their presents were ones Mackenzie knew she’d treasure forever. She memorized every scent, every sound, every soft caress of her husband’s eyes. Every nuance of excitement and anticipation Mark worked so hard to hide and had such little success in accomplishing.
This was her family. And these were the memories she wanted to cherish.
Dozens of tiny lights glittered on the branches of the Christmas tree. Outside, the window ledges were heavy with two or three inches of fresh snowfall. She’d lit candles on the hearth, had even scared up a radio station on Mark’s boom box that, much to Mark’s pretended dismay, played nonstop Christmas music.
Abel had moved Nashata and the pups to the rug by the hearth for the evening. Soft, snuffling grunts could be heard coming from the whelping box as the puppies wiggled their way around each other then knotted into a pile of full tummies and velvet-soft fur.
“You first, Abel,” Mark said, extending an envelope.
On his own, Mark had come up with the idea of giving IOUs. For Abel there were IOUs for horse chores and help at the logging site. He gave Mackenzie a promise that he’d keep the rap music down to her definition of a tolerable level and give school his best shot when it resumed after the holidays.
Mackenzie—feeling like Betty Crocker and loving it— had made Mark his own batch of fudge and stuffed some tins she’d found in the back of Abel’s cupboards full of Christmas cookies.
“Just like ‘Little House on the Prairie,’” Mark said, trying for a sputter but working harder to hide a grin as he bit into a sugar cookie bell.
For Abel, Mackenzie laid an offer on the table to straighten up his office and catch up on the book work he avoided at all costs. Her other gifts to him were of a more intimate nature which she planned to deliver in the privacy of their bedroom.
Abel’s gifts, however, were the most special of them all.
To Mark, he gave one of Nashata’s puppies. Tears glittered in her little brother’s eyes as he croaked out a rusty thank you around the lump in his throat.
“You’ll have to work it out with Casey,” Abel added, as much to fill the silence and give Mark time to deal with his emotions. “I promised her the pick of the litter when we first found out about the pups. And I hear she’s working Scarlett over pretty good trying to convince her to let her have two.”
“Maggie’s working on J.D., too,” Mackenzie added. “And since he doesn’t seem capable of denying her anything, I’m sure she’ll get her way.”
“I don’t care which one—” Mark began, then stopped midsentence when Abel tugged a red ribbon from the tree and handed it to him. A key dangled from the ribbon’s trailing ends.
Mark’s face went white as his gaze darted from Abel’s to the key.
“She’s an older model,” Abel said casually. “I bought her the first winter I was up here—but I think she’ll run with a little work. The engine needs a tune-up and we may have to put new belts on the skis but she’s yours if you want her.”
“A snowmobile?” Mark whispered, sounding as if he was afraid that if he said it too loud it wouldn’t be true.
Abel nodded.
When it became apparent that Mark was so overwhelmed he was either going to explode or blow his macho image to smithereens by crying, Abel came to the rescue. “She’s under a tarp in the stable. Why don’t you grab a flashlight and go check her out.”
With soft smiles, they watched him head for the door.
Mackenzie was the one who ended up crying. Hot, salty tears leaked down her cheeks as she gazed at her husband.
“You are a very special man.”
He shrugged. “It was just sitting there.”
“It was just yours,” she said and went to him where he sat cross-legged beside the tree. She straddled his lap, locked her legs around his waist, and looped her arms around his neck. “And you gave it to him. No one has ever done anything—”
He shushed her with a kiss. “You’re not going to cry when I give you your present are you?”
She sniffed and knuckled the tears from her eyes. “Probably.”
He gave her a hard hug then reached under the tree.
“Open it,” he said, wedging a carefully wrapped package between them.
Slowly she worked her fingers under the tape.
“It’s just paper,” he said, impatient with the meticulous care she took to avoid tearing it.
“But it’s paper that you used to wrap the first Christmas gift you’ve ever given me. I want to save it.”
“And who will save me from sentimental women?”
She gave him a half-hearted cuff with her elbow and took her own sweet time.
Beneath the gold foil paper was a book. It was old and leather bound, the edges curled with time and softened by the many hands that had held it. She ran her finger tips across the aged, scarred leather.
“It was my great-great-grandmother’s. Don’t. Don’t do that,” he pleaded as the tears began again.
“I can’t help it.” She pinched her eyes tight, gave her head a sharp shake and tried to blink them back.
She opened the book and through a blur of tears, focused on a handwritten page. “It’s...French?”
He nodded. “She was the daughter of a war chief. A Frenchman from Quebec fell in love with her and her people. He loved the stories they told, recorded them in this bound volume and gave it to her as a wedding gift.”
The sweetest ache filled her chest as she held the book to her breast. “I wish I could read them.”
“I’ll read them to you. And we’ll discover the legends together.”
The tree lights reflected in his eyes as he watched her.
“Do you think Manabozho is in here?”
“I know he is,” he whispered, then gave her the most precious gift of all. “Just as I know that I love you.”
It was a record night for tears. And for revelations.
“I have one last thing for you,” she said, getting herself together. She reached around him and produced an envelope from under the tree skirt.
He looked at it and frowned. A slow smile crept across his face when he recognized his own handwriting and it dawned on him that the letter inside was the one he’d written calling the arrangement off.
“I thought you didn’t receive this.”
“Guess I was mistaken,” she said, watching his face carefully.
He didn’t say a word. He merely rose, with her still wrapped around him, and walked to the hearth.
“Merry Christmas, wife,” he murmured and tossed the letter into the fire.
“Merry Christmas, husband,” she whispered against his mouth, as he drew her into a kiss that told her everything she needed to know about his love.
Trouble always found paradise. It was like an unwritten law. But as the days after Christmas passed, and her relationship with Abel solidified and settled, Mackenzie was beginning to think maybe someone else’s paradise was going to be invaded this time.
The changes in Mark were heartwarming. She had Abel to thank for that. While Mark insisted he was enjoying himself—and it was obvious that he was—Abel took special care to make time for him. They got the snowmobile running and spent a good part of each day scouting the snowmobile trails that wound their way around Legend Lake. He introduced Mark to ice fishing and they brought home a walleyed pike, a delicacy Mackenzie wondered how she’d lived this long without.
But most of all, what he gave to her brother was his trust. He trusted him to go out on the snowmobile alone. He trusted him with the care of his horses and to help him at the logging site.
Those might have been small matters to some. But to a boy who had never been given the opportunity to trust in himself, they were life altering.
When Scarlett pulled in the morning after New Year’s Day to pick Mark up and take him to school with Casey, Mackenzie was full of hope that his last transition would go as smoothly as the past few days they’d all spent together. And it did. The first day was eventful for its lack of events.
It was on the second day that all hell broke loose.
Abel was at the logging site when she got a call from the school a little after noon asking her to come and get Mark. There’d been an incident. She didn’t think past her concern for Mark. She didn’t try to reach Abel on the cellular. She snagged the keys to Abel’s truck and headed for Bordertown.
The town was small—less then ten thousand people. It didn’t take her long to get to the high school. She bolted through the double metal entrance doors, got her bearings and headed down the hall toward the door marked Principal’s Office.
She introduced herself to a pinch-faced secretary who looked her up and down then picked up the phone.
“Mackenzie Greene is here, Dr. Chipman. Right through that door,” she said stiffly when she hung up the phone.
Mackenzie had decided long ago that all principals’ offices came equipped with austere, vinyl side chairs, yellowed venetian blinds and a wooden chair in the corner reserved exclusively for the troublemakers.
Her heart sank when she saw Mark occupying that designated space. His shirt was torn, his lip was bloody, his knuckles swollen. And his face was a mask of cold indifference. She knew better. He was seething beneath that “nothing can get to me” glare.
“Are you all right?” she asked, going to him.
He gave a defiant sniff and looked away.
“Your brother was involved in a bit of a scuffle after lunch today.”
This from Dr. Chipman, whom she’d met and liked when she’d enrolled Mark in school over the holidays. A small man, he sat quietly behind his scarred walnut desk, his eyes magnified behind a pair of thick glasses, his receding hairline combed back unapologetically.
“The last I knew,” Mackenzie said, working hard at keeping calm, “a scuffle generally requires more than one participant. Why is it, then, that Mark is the only one waiting in your office?”
Dr. Chipman smiled kindly. “It’s a little rule of mine. Divide and conquer. The other boy is waiting for his parents in the superintendent’s office.”
Immediately she felt sheepish. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.”
“Apology accepted. In the meantime I think it would be wise if you took Mark home with you today. A new school is always an adjustment—but this is not the way to settle in.”
“What happened?” she asked, turning to Mark.
He was as silent as stone.
“That’s about as much as we’ve gotten out of either him or the Grunewald boy,” Dr. Chipman said. “Maybe he’ll feel more like talking to you.”
The blood drained from Mackenzie’s face at the mention of Grunewald’s name.
“John Grunewald’s son?” she asked, praying the answer would be no. It came as no surprise when it wasn’t.
“What happened?” she asked again, after she’d hustled Mark out of the building and into the pickup.
He stared sullenly out the window.
“Mark. You’ve got to tell me.”
“I’ve got to tell you nothing. I hate this place. We never should have left California. There’s nothing but snow and ice and hicks.”
She felt heartsick. It was back. All of it. The anger. The stubborn chip that occupied a prize spot on his shoulder.
He wouldn’t talk to her. He wouldn’t let her in. Casey talked, though. When Scarlett picked her up after school, Casey told her the whole story. Scarlett retold Casey’s account of the events over a cup of coffee at the Greenes’ kitchen table, while Casey sought out Mark in his room.
“According to Casey, the trouble started early in the day but came to a head in the lunchroom. Mark and Casey were eating together—Ryan Grunewald evidently took exception.
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