The Best Gifts Are Always Unexpected
Home for Christmas by Jillian Hart
Christina Eberlee is desperate for the safe haven promised to her by the Montana man whose bridal ad she answered. Yet she can’t forget the handsome marshal who helps her on the journey. Maybe venturing from her planned path could lead Christina to the home she was truly meant to find.
Snowflakes for Dry Creek by Janet Tronstad
“Maybe you could marry her.” Gabe Stone’s niece and nephew long for a mother just like the mail-order bride Gabe’s brother sent for and then abandoned. Yet in making the children’s Christmas dreams come true, Gabe and Annabelle may discover the most precious gift of the holidays is love.
Praise for Jillian Hart
“A sweet romance with characters
who only want the best for one another.”
—RT Book Reviews on “Her Christmas Family”
in Mail-Order Christmas Brides
“A sweet, romantic novel,
with memorable characters.”
—RT Book Reviews on Snowflake Bride
“This is a beautiful love story between two people from different stations in life, or so it appears.”
—RT Book Reviews on Patchwork Bride
Praise for Janet Tronstad
“This great story filled with kindness,
understanding and love is sure to please.”
—RT Book Reviews
on “Christmas Stars for Dry Creek”
in Mail-Order Christmas Brides
“Elizabeth is a wonderful, caring character.
Jake is a gentle giant,
and their love story is full of Christmas joy.”
—RT Book Reviews on Calico Christmas at Dry Creek
“Janet Tronstad’s quirky small town
and witty characters will add warmth
and joy to your holiday season.”
—RT Book Reviews on
“Christmas Bells for Dry Creek”
in Mistletoe Courtship
JILLIAN HART
grew up on her family’s homestead, where she helped raise cattle, rode horses and scribbled stories in her spare time. After earning her English degree from Whitman College, she worked in travel and advertising before selling her first novel. When Jillian isn’t working on her next story, she can be found puttering in her rose garden, curled up with a good book or spending quiet evenings at home with her family.
JANET TRONSTAD
grew up on her family’s farm in central Montana and now lives in Pasadena, California, where she is always at work on her next book. She has written more than thirty books, many of them set in the fictitious town of Dry Creek, Montana, where the men spend the winters gathered around the potbellied stove in the hardware store and the women make jelly in the fall.
Mail-Order Holiday Brides
Home for Christmas
Jillian Hart
Snowflakes for Dry Creek
Janet Tronstad
Home for Christmas
Jillian Hart
And let the peace of God rule in your hearts.
—Colossians 3:15
Contents
Chapter One
Montana Territory
December 21, 1885
“I think we’ve been on this train forever.” Christina Eberlee gripped the handrail, breezed down the steps from the passenger car and landed on the icy depot platform. Snowflakes caught on her eyelashes and needled her face as she twirled around in the December wind, waiting for her new friend to descend from the passenger car. “Or at least it feels that way.”
“It certainly does,” Annabelle Hester agreed, holding her beautiful hat in place as the wind tried to snatch it. “It feels nice to get out in the fresh air. I’m afraid train travel isn’t quite as glamorous as I imagined.”
“Me, either. Exciting, but cramped. Who would have guessed?” Christina trudged through the snow, thinking of the blessing of Annabelle’s companionship. Before they’d met, she’d sat alone on her velvet-covered seat, listening to the clickety-clack of the wheels on steel rails and counting the miles passing by. Dread was a hard thing to battle alone, envisioning all the things that could go wrong with this mail-order bride situation she found herself in.
Her biggest problem would have to be that her imagination would not stop seeing doom. Tom Rutger might be a perfectly fine man—he’d certainly seemed so in the letters they’d exchanged—but her errant mind kept picturing a bald bridegroom with a severe overbite and warts. A man that smelled like cabbage. Or—and this was the worst—one of those men who was nothing but hair, including a gigantic handlebar mustache, bushy beard and hair curling over the backs of his hands like fur.
Then Annabelle Hester had joined her table in the dining car, and Christina was delighted to learn she wasn’t the only mail-order bride on board. Annabelle was one, too! Finally, someone who could share her worries. Annabelle had chuckled over Christina’s greatest fear—abundantly curling hand hair—and they’d become instant friends.
“Montana Territory is such wide-open country,” Annabelle commented as she looked around. She was a dainty, lovely young woman who outshone every other female on the platform. “So different from back East.”
“You will come to like it, I’m sure. I didn’t like Dakota Territory at first, but I came to love the wide-open spaces and the skies that go on forever. Not that you can see either with all this snow,” Christina replied.