Jodi Thomas

Titles by Jodi Thomas

Just Down the Road

The Comforts of Home

Somewhere Along the Way

Welcome to Harmony

Rewriting Monday

Twisted Creek

Texas Blue

The Lone Texan

Tall, Dark, and Texan

Texas Princess

Texas Rain

The Texan’s Reward

A Texan’s Luck

When a Texan Gambles

The Texan’s Wager

To Wed in Texas

To Kiss a Texan

The Tender Texan

Prairie Song

The Texan and the Lady

To Tame a Texan’s Heart

Forever in Texas

Texas Love Song

Two Texas Hearts

The Texan’s Touch

Twilight in Texas

The Texan’s Dream

Penguin Specials

In a Heartbeat

A Husband for Holly

A Husband for Holly

Jodi Thomas

BERKLEY BOOKS, NEW YORK

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

Published by the Penguin Group

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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

“A Husband for Holly” previously appeared in the anthology
A Country Christmas
, published by Signet.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

A HUSBAND FOR HOLLY

A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the author

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Berkley eSpecial edition / March 2012

Copyright © 1993 by Jodi Koumalats.

Excerpt from
Just Down the Road
by Jodi Thomas copyright © 2012 by Jodi Koumalats.

Cover photo by Shutterstock. Cover design by George Long.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

ISBN: 978-1-101-56352-6

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Berkley Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

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1

December 23, 1865

Texas

Luther Walters grumbled at his lifelong friend, Samuel Stone, as they pulled a flatbed wagon onto the loading dock at Bryan, Texas. The sun was just coming up and they’d been driving half of the night, leaving Luther in no mood to be sociable. “I’m still not sold on this idea for a present for Holly. Too many unpredictables in this kind of deal, Sam.”

Stretching his back, Luther spat a long stream of brown liquid and continued, “If this ain’t the most harebrained notion you’ve ever come up with, I hope my memory doesn’t return enough to think of a worse one.”

Samuel climbed carefully down from the wagon, favoring his left knee as always. He tossed the buffalo robe he’d used as a lap quilt into the back. “We agreed to get her something special, it being both Christmas and her twenty-first birthday.” He pulled on the belt, which had insisted on sliding below his belly at every opportunity for more than fifty years. “So no use pondering what’s done any longer.”

“Yeah, but a husband?” Luther shouted remembering Sam’s hearing problem. If we order our Holly a husband, she’ll skin us both alive if she don’t like him. What if he’s a no-account?”

“Stop worrying about ‘what if’ when we ain’t dealt with the here and now. Besides, if he could read the ad, the feller’s one up on us.” Samuel waved at the stationmaster. “Mornin’, Seth, you notice a man climb off the train a few minutes ago?”

The station manager looked up at the two aging cowhands and smiled before pointing to the end of the platform. “He’s the only soul who got off this morning. Been standing there watching the sun rise ever since.”

Luther and Samuel looked down the empty dock. Standing alone waited a tall man wrapped in a wool coat. His Union blue hat was pinned up on one side in the manner of a cavalry officer, and finely tooled black saddlebags hung over one shoulder. His dark coat was pulled open to reveal a polished Army Colt strapped to his waist. Unlike the ragged Rebel boys they’d seen coming home, this soldier looked as though his uniform was new from boot to brim.

Luther grabbed Samuel, as if they were about to take a step closer to the devil himself. “Sam! That can’t be him.”

Sam squinted hard into the morning sun trying to make out details of the thin stranger. “He’s tall, just like his telegram said. Least we won’t have to worry about Holly’s kids being runts. Nice-looking feller, too, from what I can make out beneath that hat.”

Luther didn’t decrease his hold on Sam’s arm. “But it can’t be him!” The aging man was shaking his head so hard, his saggy chins fell a step behind the rest of his face. “He can’t be Holly’s present. That’s a Yankee!”

Sam pulled free of his friend and moved forward. Being raised in the Oklahoma Territory, he’d never been as fond of marking a man by his birthplace as most. “Pardon me, mister?” Sam shouted as he hurried toward the officer before Luther could stop him. “You wouldn’t be Zachary Hamilton, would you?”

The stranger turned toward the two men and nodded once without speaking. At first glance, he cut a handsome picture with his dark hair and blue-gray eyes. But as Sam got closer he saw more, far more, maybe even more than he wanted to see.

The stranger’s eyes were puffy with sleeplessness, and his high cheekbones hollow with thinness. His mouth was tight, as if he hadn’t smiled in years. His stare had the coldness of one who valued nothing, not even his own life. Sam had seen what war did to some men, but he hadn’t expected to see such total loss of a belief in dreams in a young man wearing Union blue.

Sam slowly offered his hand. “Nice to meet you, Captain Hamilton. I’m Sam Stone.” He glanced at his partner. “And this here is Luther Walters. We’re mighty glad you answered our ad.”

Before either of the men could react, the Union officer before them crumpled, as if he were made of damp paper. He hit the platform with a hard thud that seemed to echo off the station house.

Sam dropped to one knee and touched Hamilton’s forehead. “He’s burning up.” The old man lifted the officer’s shoulders. “We’d best get him home.”

Luther picked up Zach’s feet. “Great! Not only did we get Holly a damn Yankee for Christmas, we got her a dead, damn Yankee.”

Sam struggled with the body as they moved toward the wagon. “Look on the bright side. If we can get her to marry him before he dies, she’ll be a widow. You know how much higher widows are thought of around these parts than old maids.”

Luther shook his head in agreement. “I told you from the first she wouldn’t marry any man we had to order for her. She’s got too much pride.”

“Well, it’s too late to find her another Christmas present. We’ll have to go with this one.”

They tossed Zach onto the dirty buffalo hide in the wagon bed with the same care they loaded firewood. Sam wiped his forehead and thumbed toward the town’s only diner. “Might as well eat breakfast. It’ll take several hours to get him home. That is if he lives long enough for Holly to meet him.”

“Kill him is more like it.” Luther laughed. “If there ain’t a man in the state who can tame her, what hope does a sickly Yankee have?”

Sam agreed as they disappeared into the town’s only eating establishment.

2

Zachary Hamilton awakened slowly, one sense at a time, to the welcoming aroma of baked bread and freshly boiled coffee. He could feel the warmth of a fire crackling several feet away. A woman hummed softly from somewhere beyond the room. A feeling of being home blanketed Zach, and he didn’t want to open his eyes. For the first time in years, he remembered a moment when he’d felt alive, when he thought there was good in the world. A time before the War Between the States, a time before the prison at Andersonville.

Slowly, he forced himself to open his eyes, even though he knew the dream might disappear once he came fully awake. Huge railroad cross ties formed the ceiling of the room he was in, giving him the impression that this home had been built to weather any storm.

His hand gripped the quilts covering him as his gaze moved around the rest of the room. The large bed he lay in was against one wall, surrounded by a menagerie of furniture. Large hand-cut wooden pieces mixed with thin-legged French pieces. Lace brushed against animal hides in this large house that seemed to be missing inside walls to separate one area from another. Two doors cut into each of the far walls. One, Zach guessed, would be to the kitchen; the other, judging by the bolt, must lead outside.

In the center of the room stood a table set for four, with dishes as mismatched as the room’s furnishings.

The humming stopped abruptly. “Evenin’” came the clear sound of a woman’s voice from the doorway leading into the kitchen.

Zach turned his gaze, but all words log-piled in his throat as he caught first sight of her. Leaning against the doorway was a young woman who seemed to belong in the room, for she was as mismatched as the china on the table. Her stance was wide, like a man’s, with an old revolver strapped to her thigh, and pants three sizes too big belted at her waist. The white shirt she wore was drop-shoulder, making her slender build seem even smaller. Hair the color of a fiery golden sunset massed around her face and hugged her shoulders in a wild tumbling of softness.

She could be an angel or a devil, but one thing Zach knew: He’d never forget the sight of her. This woman was the kind to haunt a man’s dreams.

With a sudden blast of cold air, the two men Zach had seen at the train station stormed through the outside door. Each was loaded down with branches of greenery.

The strange woman smiled warmly at the two old men, and motioned for them to take a seat at the table. Both men nodded toward Zach and took their chairs as the woman brought in a pot of coffee.

As she poured, she glanced toward Zach. “I told the boys I’d cook supper, then we’d see if you were dead.” She moved toward him with a grace nature granted few women. Her slight smile told him she had no doubt he’d live. “Seeing as you’re alive, I might as well introduce myself and offer you a cup. I’m Holly McCarter, and this has been my ranch since my father died six years ago.”

Zach couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He tried to remember how the ad he’d answered had read. Something about an old maid looking for a man to help her run a huge spread in Texas. He’d known at the time that the ad was no more than a strange advertisement for a husband, and he’d been just heartsick and drunk enough to answer it. But he must have been wrong; the woman before him would have no trouble finding a husband, and she was years away from being what he’d consider an old maid.

As Holly raised her hand to his forehead, their gazes met and Zach was hypnotized. Her eyes were evergreen. The color of the huge fir trees that grow deep in the forests of upstate New York. The color of peace.

“Everyone knows for a hundred miles around that there’s always a meal offered on the McCarter spread,” she said, “but we usually have our guests arrive conscious.”

When Zach didn’t reply, Holly glanced at the two old men filling their plates at the table. “He doesn’t talk much, does he? Where did you two say you found him?”

Both Luther and Samuel seemed too preoccupied to answer, but Zach remembered his manners. “Pleased to meet you, Miss McCarter. I met your friends at the station this morning.” When she looked confused, he hurried to explain, “You’re nothing like I expected from the ad.” How could he begin to tell her that he’d stayed drunk the entire train trip, dreading the sight of a woman who would have to put an ad in a paper to find a husband? How was he ever going to explain that he’d have sold his soul for a place where he could see the sun rise and set without a house in his line of sight? And she’d offered just such a place, for only the use of his name after hers.

Holly looked surprised. “Ad?”

She tossed her hair back over one shoulder in a way that made Zach’s gut tighten suddenly. Her beauty made him ache for something he’d never known he missed.

He glanced toward the two cowhands, but they didn’t look his way. Both were shoveling down food as if they wouldn’t get the chance to eat again for days. There was nothing left for Zach to do but face his future wife and iron out the details of their agreement. But he wouldn’t do it without standing. He shoved his feet from beneath the covers, and was relieved to find his trousers still on. His feet hit his boots as he swung them off the bed.

Holly stood, none too patiently, as he pulled on his boots and coat. She knew something was up. She’d sensed it the moment she’d returned from the north pasture and found Sam and Luther tucking this stranger into her father’s old bed, as though there were nowhere else on the ranch to put him. Luther and Samuel had been whispering for weeks, and they had disappeared entirely last night.

Now they were eating her cooking without complaint. Something they hadn’t done in years.

She studied the stranger as he finished dressing. Despite his thinness, he wasn’t bad looking. It was not so much that his features were perfect, but more that there was strength molded into his every bone. She could see it in the determined set of his jaw and the rigidness of his back. She might have found him handsome, if he hadn’t been a Yankee.

He faced her with the stance of a seasoned soldier. “I’m Zachary Hamilton, and I believe I meet the qualifications in your ad. Before the war, I was a veterinarian by education, so that should cover the part about knowing horses and cattle. I’m under thirty, single, have all my teeth, and can read.”

Holly’s eyes darkened to indigo green. “What ad?” This time she turned her question to the two old men. “Either this man is crazy, or you two have been up to something.”

Samuel and Luther jumped from their chairs and put the table between themselves and Holly, as if her question had been punctuated with war drums.

“Now, Holly”—Luther wiped his mouth with his sleeve—“don’t go gettin’ mad. We didn’t just find him, we sent for him. Thought it was a good idea. How was we to know the only man who answered the ad would be a Yankee?”

Samuel’s head was bobbing in agreement. “We just wanted to get you something special for Christmas. And the war’s over. And he don’t look so bad if we could fatten him up a little. And . . .”

Holly advanced slowly toward the two men. “Are you two trying to tell me you
ordered
this man for me?”

Zach couldn’t help but laugh aloud. How could these two men possibly be afraid of such a slip of a girl? It was almost as ridiculous as the idea that they’d gotten her a husband for a gift.

To his surprise, the woman turned on him. “Stop laughing!” she demanded with eyes shining in anger. “I’ll deal with you when I’m finished with these two.”

Luther moved a step closer. “We can’t take him back now. There’s not another train until after Christmas.”

Holly pressed her lips together until they disappeared. “How could you?” she asked so quietly, both men looked even more nervous. “How could the two of you place an ad for a husband? Did you think anyone who answered would be acceptable, like ordering a sack of flour?”

Sam saw his chance. “We thought we’d give it a try. After all, that’s the way your dad found your mother, and a sweeter little French lady never lived. Luther and me figured it was worth another shot. Thought you might like the idea, ’cause there ain’t a man in these parts to suit your fancy.”

Luther nodded. “He ain’t bad. He can even read, so the two of you can talk about those books you like.”

“Did it ever occur to either of you that I might want to pick my own husband?” Her voice might have been calm, but her fists were planted firmly on her hips. “And when and if I do, it won’t be a Northerner. I want no part of even inviting a Yankee onto my property.”

Luther didn’t have an answer, so he fell back on the only tactic that worked when he had no ground to stand on. “Now, Holly, you know we promised your father we’d see after you like you was our own. You being motherless from birth. We did the best we—”

“Out!” Holly shouted. “Both of you!”

“But—”

“Out!” She moved toward them, and both men ran as if they could hear a rattler’s tail shaking.

They were out the door and gone before Zach could control his laughter.

With a fiery whirl, Holly turned on him. “How dare you take advantage of two dear old men?”

“Me!” He could see the anger in her eyes and the tightness around her mouth. She would run him through if she had a blade, unless he explained. “All I’ve done, Miss McCarter, is answer an ad. I thought you knew about their plan.”

“I knew nothing of any ad or plan.” She moved closer, a little of the anger passing from her face as she realized he might be just as much a victim of the old men’s plan. “Let me make one thing crystal clear, Mr. Hamilton. I want no husband ordered for me. If I did, I’d pick him from sturdy Texas stock, not the likes of you. The war’s over, so I’ll grant you the McCarter hospitality—but nothing else. You must be as crazy as those two old men to think I’d go along with this.”

Zach didn’t defend himself. He couldn’t tell her that he’d been starved in a Rebel prison camp for almost a year. Or that when he’d been last wounded in battle, he had caught a fever and had lain in the mud for three days waiting for death. “I assumed the agreement was tentative.” He felt his muscles tighten in attention. “Pending on both parties’ agreement.”

“There was no agreement, Mr. Hamilton,” she reminded him. “I’ll have no part of being married to a man ordered for me by my two absentminded old godfathers.”

He nodded once, understanding her clearly. “No agreement.”

Anger passed from her like a summer storm, leaving her more beautiful. “I’ll pay you for the train ticket back.”

“That won’t be necessary.” He could sense her nervousness, and suddenly felt sorry for the lady. This must be embarrassing for her. “I’ll have the men take me back to town immediately.”

When he passed her heading toward the door, she didn’t even come up to the top of his shoulder; however, he had a feeling there was little this lady couldn’t do.

“No,” she said, her voice finally calming to a normal tone. “Sam and Luther are too tired after being up all night, and you must be exhausted as well. You’re welcome to stay the night, and I’ll drive you back myself come morning.”

“Thank you.” Zach glanced at the one bed in the room. “But . . .”

Holly caught his unvoiced question. “I’ll sleep in the loft. I do most nights anyway. My father would come back from his grave to haunt me if I didn’t show a stranger, any stranger, the McCarter hospitality. It, like the Christmas Eve party tomorrow night, is something he always insisted upon no matter what else was happening.”

A silence fell between them, as wide as a canyon. Zach wasn’t accustomed to talking with women, and she wasn’t one for small talk. Without a word, they sat down at the table and began to eat, both very much aware of the other.

He noticed her hands were small, but calloused across her palms from hard work.

She noticed his manners were impeccable, and his slight smile warmed her to her boots.