Prologue

“Holly In His Heart”

Angel Falls, Kansas

December 1879

Holly Ross tugged her scarf tighter around her neck as she hurried down the wooden boardwalk. Her cousins had warned her that winter came early in Angel Falls, and it appeared they spoke the truth. A north wind cut through her heavy winter coat as if it were nothing more than the lacy, crocheted shawl her mother wore even in the summer.

Ducking her head against the chilly breeze, she couldn’t stop a shiver that swirled around her ankles and ran straight up to her ears. She’d much rather be at home with her cousins working on her quilt and sipping bergamot tea than running errands around town. But this one, a gift for her mother, was important. Not that she wouldn’t be home in time for Christmas. But she wanted her to have it before the holiday, along with a bundle of letters for her grandparents, aunts, and uncles.

Holly had purchased all her family’s Christmas presents before coming to Angel Falls to teach school. She had been fortunate to secure an interim teaching position in the middle of the school year. Two weeks ago, Eunice McNeill, the schoolteacher, fell and suffered a broken leg. She also sustained two fractured ribs and a nasty injury just above her eye prompting the doctor to order her to bed, and the school board to find a replacement. Luckily for her, Uncle Thad was on the school board and recommended Holly for the position. Besides, she needed a break from her home at Fort Riley.

A fact she continually tamped down to the furthest recesses of her heart.

Besides, it wouldn’t serve her well when teaching her students, no matter how short a time. Her cousin Sadie even casually mentioned that maybe Eunice would give up teaching altogether since she was in her late sixties and unmarried. And according to Uncle Thad, Eunice often let it be known that she’d never been married and never would be. She had devoted her entire life to teaching.

Holly wasn’t as young as some of the girls of marriageable age at Fort Riley or here in Angel Falls. She had just turned twenty-six on her last birthday, but like Eunice had no plans to marry. Well, she had plans, but they were dashed through no fault of her own.

Lost in her thoughts, she paused before heading toward Weickert’s Mercantile to mail her package.

“Look out!”

She didn’t even have time to turn around and see what was happening before something large and solid hit her from the side. It knocked her backward and made her drop the neatly wrapped and tied package.

“Jingles!” she cried, doing her best to pick herself back up off the ground. A gust of wind swirled around her, scattering the letters every which way.

“Oh, no!” She grabbed for them, trying her best to recover them all. She loved all her aunts and uncles equally but it wouldn’t do if one aunt got a letter and the others didn’t.

She needed them all.

Holly watched them go with a sad heart, then turned back to the thing…no, the person who had bumped into her. “Jingles! Didn’t you see me standing here?” Where could he have been going that was so all-fire important that he had to knock her to the ground?

The man straightened to his considerable height. He was tall and broad as a tree trunk. “What do you think you’re doing?” The growl sounded as if it started at his boots and traveled upward, gaining momentum.

“I—”

“Lady, didn’t you see the wagon coming?” He raised his voice once more and seemed to grow taller in front of her. His strong, square jaw tightened, and beneath the cover of his dark beard, a muscle quivered in his cheek.

“Well—”

“Besides looking down the barrel of a gun, that’s about the best way to get yourself killed, lady.”

“Actually, I—” began Holly, her voice timid. She hadn’t meant to sound so…timid. She didn’t want to be meek and timid. Because she was just over five feet tall in her stocking feet, everyone had pushed her around her whole life. Like other situations in her life, her small stature didn’t necessarily equal respect. And the students’ behavior had been unusually unruly the last two days at school. With the holiday spirit in the air, and Christmas only days away, she couldn’t blame them.

But she was at the end of her tether.

“You bumped into me. You made me drop my package,” she bristled. “It was for someone special. And so were my letters.”

“You made me drop my son’s birthday treat.”

Holly turned back to face him. He was pointing to a tin pie plate lying in a snowbank. Upside down.

“How is it my fault you dropped your pie since I was minding my business when you bumped into me?”

“How is it that people like you manage to get around every day.”

People like her? “Now hold on just one minute!” Holly threw her shoulders back and utilized every inch of her five-foot frame then rose on her tiptoes for an added boost. “I was walking across the street, headed for the mercantile and minding my own business when you knocked me down.”

“I saved you.” He glared at her, his rich brown eyes dark and angry. However, there was something else in their depths. Unhappiness, certainly. Fear, not likely. The man could take on a grizzly. What did he have to fear?

“Saved…me?” Astonished, she shook her head. “You didn’t save me, mister. I daresay you nearly threw me to my death.”

“You weren’t paying attention to where you were going. A wagon was breathing down your neck. You could have died.”

“But I didn’t,” she responded.

“Because I saved you,” he countered.

Really, the man was insufferable! “Fine,” she muttered. “You saved me.” Not because she believed he was right but because she had other things to do. The man was either half-witted or at the very least thought himself a hero.

She turned, intent on heading to her original destination, the package and some of her letters clutched to her chest.

“That’s it? You have nothing else to say?”

Leave a little voice urged. She should walk away and leave well enough alone. But that was a major flaw in her personality—at least according to her family. She wasn’t skilled at letting bygones be bygones. At every family get-together, there was debate over whether she was born with that inherent quality or acquired it at some point.

She could feel her ears growing warm under her woolen hat, surprised the heat hadn’t melted the yarn as she turned slowly to face the man.

He towered above her, one eyebrow raised in question and a detestable smirk riding his lips. “I’m waiting,” he drawled.

He could wait until the Rapture for all she cared. Obviously, the man had forgotten his manners and what it meant to be a Christian. Why did she have to be the one to remind him? “Should you ever encounter a woman crossing the road for whatever reason, it might be to your benefit to allow her to cross unmolested.”

The smirk disappeared, that jaw tightened, and his posture straightened.

“Insufferable,” he muttered.

Holly raised her chin. “You certainly are.”