hug.
“You must be starving,” Audrey said, and linked her arm through Marlee’s as they crossed the platform. “Mama’s been cooking all morning.”
“We’ve fixed up a room for you,” Becky said.
“It’s small,” Audrey pointed out.
“But it’s so pretty,” Becky said. “Audrey made new window curtains.”
“Becky hooked a new rug,” her sister said.
“I love your dress,” Becky declared. “You have to tell us about what the girls in Philadelphia are wearing.”
“Wait until you hear what the town is doing for Christmas this year,” Audrey said.
“This is going to be the best Christmas we’ve ever had,” Becky declared.
With a cousin on each side of her, Marlee descended the steps and headed toward town. She glanced back over her shoulder and spotted the man still talking to the conductor.
Five weeks. Five weeks, as originally planned. Five weeks in Harmony, Texas. It really might be the best Christmas she’d ever had.
Chapter Two
“This Christmas is going to be marvelous,” Becky declared, as Marlee walked with her cousins down the boardwalk away from the train station.
Marlee spotted a few women wearing simple dresses covered by long cloaks. Some carried market baskets; most tended the small children who swarmed around them. The street was filled with carriages, horses and wagons.
“Here we are,” Becky announced and gestured to a large display window filled with blue speckled pots and pans, an array of colorful blankets and knitted hats and scarves. Harmony General Store was painted on the glass.
Marlee followed her cousins inside. She’d read about the store her aunt and uncle, Viola and Willard Meade, owned in the letters she’d received from them over the years. It was exactly as she’d imagined, with aisles and shelves filled with merchandise, everything organized and spotless. But she hadn’t expected the place to look so warm and inviting.
“She’s here!” Becky shouted.
Customers turned to stare. At the rear of the store, the woman behind a counter looked up and smiled. Marlee knew immediately that this was her aunt Viola. Tall with slightly graying hair, she resembled Marlee’s own mother.
“Oh, Marlee, welcome,” she said, as she hurried down the aisle. She threw her arms around her. “We’re so blessed to have you here this Christmas.”
“Thank you. I’m pleased to be here,” Marlee said, and decided there was no sense mentioning that only a few minutes ago she’d seriously considered jumping aboard the next eastbound train to escape this place.
“Your uncle Willard is seeing to the arrival of the new merchandise,” Viola said. “You girls show Marlee her room and get her settled.”
They passed through the curtained doorway into the family living quarters, a large room with a wooden table and chairs, cupboards, a sideboard and a cookstove. Ruffled curtains covered the windows. A narrow staircase led up to the second floor. The room was warm; the aroma of baking ham hung in the air.
“We used this for storage,” Becky said, as she headed toward the rear of the room. “But we emptied it so you could have a place of your own.”
Marlee lingered in the doorway as Becky and Audrey went in ahead of her. The room was small, but larger than the quarters she’d been assigned at Mrs. Montgomery’s Philadelphia mansion—and much more inviting.
Dark green curtains hung on the windows, bringing out the warm colors in the patchwork quilt and rug. A bureau stood against one wall, and on another a small writing desk and stool; a rocker with a soft cushion sat in the corner.
Emotion rose in Marlee. They’d put this room together for her? Her? It seemed too good to be true.
“It’s lovely,” she said, in little more than a whisper. “Absolutely lovely.”
“We picked green because it’s Christmas. We even decorated a little,” Becky said, pointing to the bureau where a golden star was nestled among evergreen boughs. “You’re going to love our Christmas this year. We’re having a big festival. The whole town is going to be decorated.”
“We’re going to have music almost every night,” Audrey said.
“Real musical performances at the social hall,” Becky said, then gave her sister a teasing smile. “Performances that will include a certain man.”
Audrey blushed. “Nothing is going on between Chord Barrett and me.”
“Nothing?” Becky said. “Well, he certainly finds every excuse possible to stop by the store a dozen times every day.”
“He’s just seeing to his duties,” Audrey insisted, then said to Marlee, “Chord is one of the town’s deputies.”
“A deputy and a musician?” Marlee asked.
“Chord’s whole family is singers and musicians,” Becky said. “The Barrett Family Singers, they call themselves. Malcolm and Selma—that’s Chord’s ma and pa—gave all their children musical names. Chord’s younger brother is named Allegro, but everybody just calls him Al.”
“Then there’s Melody, Lyric and Aria,” Audrey said.
“Piccolo and Calliope are twins,” Becky added. “The family has performed everywhere. Malcolm is in Colorado lining up more performances for them.”
“Chord doesn’t travel with the family as much as he used to now that he’s a deputy sheriff,” Audrey said.
“And because he likes to be in Harmony near you,” Becky pointed out.
A little grin crept over Audrey’s face, but she ignored her sister’s words.
“You get settled, Marlee, and rest up a bit from your trip,” she said. “We’ll all have supper after the store closes.”
She and Becky eased out of the room and closed the door.
Marlee unpinned her hat and took off her shoes. She needed to unpack, but the bed looked awfully inviting. She lay down and fell asleep.
Marlee came awake with a start in a pitch-black room. A minute passed before she remembered where she was. She didn’t know how long she’d slept but her growling stomach told her it must have been a while.
She rose and eased open her bedroom door. Wall sconces were lit in the kitchen, but she saw no one and hoped she hadn’t slept through supper. The sound of voices drew her across the kitchen, and she realized the store was still open for business. She parted the curtain at the doorway—then gasped.
He was here. That handsome man she’d spotted at the train station. He was in the store standing at the counter, talking to her aunt and an older, slightly balding man who was probably her uncle Willard.
Good gracious, he was even more handsome up close.
Marlee’s head felt light as she stared. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. A strange heat rushed through her.
Then he shifted and his gaze cut to her. Marlee froze in the doorway, a handful of curtain fabric twisted in each fist. For a few seconds—or was it hours?—their gazes locked. His expression darkened and his eyes dipped to her feet, then rose to her face again, as if he was seeing straight through her.
Goodness, she looked terrible. Here she stood in her stocking feet, in a rumpled dress she’d actually slept in, with loose strands of hair curling around her face. She’d hardly been at her best today on the railroad platform when she’d thought he’d looked at her—and now, somehow, she’d managed to look even worse.
Marlee jerked the curtains closed