ROMANCE: BIKER ROMANCE: Werewolf Rider (MC Shifter Pregnancy Romance) (New Adult Paranormal Romance Short Stories) (143 page)

              Earl swallowed, his eyes glistening. “I wanted to.” He released a short breath and tilted his head. “Look, Anna…I know I have been acting poorly. I’ve just been…” He pressed his lips together, frustration marring his expression. “I haven’t loved anyone since Emma, and I didn’t think I ever would. But then you come along, and you change everything—make it better—and I didn’t know how to react to it, and I didn’t know what the right thing to do was.” He sighed again, a breathless chuckle leaving him as he gave her a helpless yet affectionate look. “You’ve said that I saved you, but…but you saved me, too. And I…I know for certain now—without a doubt and without regret—that I love you, Anna.”

              “Earl,” she whispered. Her heart hammered and her limbs jittered. “Earl, you…love me?” She didn’t realize she was grinning until she felt the bite in her cheeks. “I love you, too.”

              Before she knew it, Earl was pressed his calloused hands against her cheeks and leaning toward her. Anna sucked in a breath right before his lips met hers.

              Their first kiss was tender, sweet. Earl moved slowly against her, and she felt as if she was melding into him.

              “Earl,” she breathed over his mouth when they parted.

              “I Love you,” he breathed back before kissing her again.

              As they continued to kiss one another—their cabin warm from the fire—Anna kept a strong grip on her new snow globe. The glass felt cool in her hands, just like the glass of her old snow globe had.

              Her first good Christmas…and it was perfect.

The End.

BURNED BRIDE

Lacy had spent the majority of her young life living in an orphanage run by the Sisters of Mercy in Denver, Colorado.  The building was old and a bit run down, but Lacy had grown to love the orphanage and the people who ran it.  They had saved her life in more ways than one.  When she was a young girl, she had lived on a small homestead a hundred miles south of the city with her parents and her siblings.  One night, fire had torn through their little home, stealing her family from her and leaving her with scars across a third of her body, including the right side of her face.  A local doctor had kept her stable and, as soon as she had been declared fit to travel, she had been sent to the nuns and their orphanage.  It was there that she had truly begun the healing process and she was eternally grateful to the nuns for working around the clock to save her life.

She was even more grateful for the orphanage because it was the one place where nobody ever looked at her scars with either horror or pity.  Outside of the walls of the orphanage, complete strangers often gawked and stared at her.  In those walls, she was safe and free to be herself.  It was for that reason that she had not taken an apprenticeship with a seamstress or laundress at an earlier age and left the nun's care as many of the other girls had.  She, instead, stayed until her 18th birthday, helping the sisters to take care of the younger children.  

As her birthday approached, she knew that she had a difficult decision to make.  The options for a woman in the west were limited to begin with.  Most had the choice of marriage, joining the church, or some sort of manual labor or maybe working as the teacher at a one room school house in one of he most remote towns if she was lucky.  Lacy, while educated enough to teach, did not want to expose herself to the teasing of children about her scars.  She had had enough of that in life.  Her thought had always been that she would join the nuns and stay at the orphanage.  She knew that it would be hard work, but it would be no harder than any other job she might find and she would have the peace of mind of knowing that she was working for a cause very dear to her heart.

She had never considered marriage for herself, not since the fire.  She had no illusions about romance.  She thought that no man could look past her scars and so she had out her dreams of a love and family of her own away.  It was only her friend Jana who did not accept that.  They had been close since they were very young.  Jana, 2 years older than Lacy, had watched over her since she came to the orphanage.  At 17, she had left to marry a young man who worked in the bank just down the street from the orphanage.  

Now, she was pregnant with their first child. Though Lacy was so joyful for the blessings in her friend's life, she had missed her deeply.  Weekly, though she went to her little house for tea and to talk about all the changes in both of their lives.  It was on one such visit that Jana pushed her about the choices that lay ahead of her.  She made it very clear what she thought, that Lacy should do all that she could to have a family of her own, even if it meant that she needed to consider live as a mail order bride to a groom living in some of the most remote regions of the West.  It shocked Lacy that was so adamant in her opinion and her first instinct was denial. 

“Jana, I can't,” she said, nearly dropping her tea cup in shock at her friend’s suggestion.

“Lacy, you deserve a life of your own, not one of servitude to others,” Jana insisted, cradling her pregnant belly as she spoke.

“And what do you think I will do as a mail order bride, be the lady of the manor?” Lacy teased, trying to lighten the mood.  She had never even considered marriage at all, let alone allowing herself to become a mail order bride.

“My dear friend, I am afraid that there is no easy road for you, but at least if you try to find a husband you will not go through it alone.  Besides, at least then your hard work will be for the benefit of your own family,” Jana insisted, her eyes locked on Lacy’s as she spoke.

“Family? Those men do not see mail order brides as any more than a hired hand,” Lacy said, unwilling to tear open the old wound of her desire for a family.  She had shoved those dreams aside and giving herself the hope that she could have them was only the road to more pain.

“Maybe not, but your children will not see you that way.  Someday, you will be a mother,” Jana countered, knowing her friend well enough to see the desires of her heart.

“That dream is not for me,” Lacy answered, fighting tears.

“But it could be.  I have watched you with the younger children at the orphanage.  You are so nurturing.  You should be a mother my dear,”  Jana said tenderly, wrapping her arm around her friend as she spoke.

“Children should come from love.  Otherwise they will end up like us, alone in the world,” she answered, thinking of all the children at the orphanage who were not their because of loss, but because their families had dissolved and they had had nowhere else to go.

“We are not alone.  We have each other and those children will have you,” she pointed out, trying to make Lacy see what Jana had always known, that she deserved to live a full life.

“But who will my husband be?” she asked, beginning to allow herself to consider the possibility, as scary as it was to her.

“Does that really matter?” Jana asked, unable to suppress a laugh as she spoke.

“I think it might,” Lacy said with a smile as she sipped her tea.  Leave it to Jana, who had been head over heels for her husband since the first day she saw him, to think that such a thing did not matter.

“You are so strong.  You can endure anything.  Besides, he might be the love of your life,” Jana said with an excited smile that told Lacy that Jana was sure that she would find not only a husband but also a love.  Her own doubt that that was possible stung as she shook her head.

“No man could love me,” she said stoically.  She had no illusions about her scared face and she could not afford to develop them as she prepared to take the next step in her life.

“You do not know that.” Jana argued.

“Yes I do.  Look at me,” she said, with sadness in her eyes as she gestured to her ruined face.

“Lacy, you have a beautiful soul and your features are lovely.  You cannot help that they are covered in scars,” Jana said, angry that her friend could not see her own beauty.

“I dare you to find a man who will see it that way,” Lacy answered with a sad smile.  She could not and would not allow herself to believe that such a thing was possible because she knew how much it would hurt to let herself believe it only to lose hope once again.

“And I dare you to see yourself as I see you,” Jana pushed, unwilling to allow sadness and fear to rule Lacy’s future. 

“If I take out an ad, will you leave this alone?” Lacy asked in frustration.  Though she did not think for a moment that any man would answer an honest ad, it might at least get Jana to give up on her quest.

“Will you really?” Jana squealed in excitement, wrapping her arms tightly around her dearest friend.

“Yes and I will be painfully honest about myself.  When no man writes to claim my hand in marriage, I will take it as a sign from the heavens that I should join the convent or seek another position, maybe at an orphanage or a hospital run by the church,” she said, confident that the Lord would help to guide her to the right path.

“I accept your deal my dear,” Jana said, smiling as though she had won a great victory.

“Whatever path I choose, I will miss you terribly,” Lacy said, tears threatening again.  They had never been apart for more than a week.  The thought of being any real distance from her friend, the closest thing to family she had left, was the greatest pain she had felt since she lost her family.

“I will never be more than a letter away,” Jana said, clearly also very emotional at the thought of their pending separation. 

“You are my family, blood or not,” Lacy said, hugging her friend close and trying to memorize the feeling of being in her presence.

“And you are mine,” Jana said confidently.

Chapter 2

Lacy did just as she promised Jana.  She put forth an honest ad, seeking a man who would accept her for who she was.  It had said simply:

18 year old hard working, God fearing woman seeking husband

Dark brown hair, blue eyes, scarred face

All responses should be addressed to the Sisters of Mercy Orphanage, Denver

She had written it quickly and honestly and sent it off to the local mail order bride office.  Some of the girls in the orphanage had taken the same path so she had no trouble getting the address.  She had done it believing in her heart that it was a futile effort, that she would not get any response at all and that she could then move along in her life.  The orphanage had allowed her to stay on in her old room, helping out as she always had until she made her choice.  She saw the ad only as a formality.

She was completely shocked a month later when she received a response in the mail.  It was from a miner in his late twenties named Terrance.  His letter described a homestead with animals and fields that needed tending while he worked in the mines.  He needed a partner, someone willing to work hard in exchange for a roof and meals, plus the safety and freedom that marriage provides to a woman. 

His letter was written bluntly, with no flowery language or promises of a loving life together.  He simply offered a life of honest, hard work.  There was something in the way that he wrote it, in the way that he did not try to sell her on an idealistic future that she found appealing.  She was shocked to find herself considering his offer.  He lived in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California.  She had never imagined leaving Denver, let alone the state of Colorado.  Still, the thought of a new life was not something she could easily dismiss.

After a week of reading and rereading his letter and staring at a map of California that she had found in the library at the orphanage, she shocked even herself by writing him back and accepting his offer.  Soon enough, she bought her train ticket and packed everything she owned in to an old trunk that the nuns gave to her.  She shared a tearful goodbye with the women who had raised her and with Jana, the only family that she had left.  Then, alone, she made her way to the train station and, from there, towards California.