Free Mail Order Mistletoe (Brides of Beckham Book 17) by Kirsten Osbourne

What good would it do either of them to not like the other?
    "I do!  I want you to like me, and put up with my bad behavior, while I dislike you.  Ridiculous isn't it?"
    She nodded as she served their meal, unsure what he was trying to say to her.  "Yes, it is."
    He washed his hands and took his place at the table, looking at her.  "I don't want to like you, because I'm afraid if I like you, it'll be easier to love you.  And I feel like I'd be betraying someone to love you."
    "Your first wife?" she asked, knowing the woman needed to be acknowledged.  "Why didn't you ever mention her?" Her voice was soft as she asked, but her hurt came through.
    "How did you know?" he asked, surprised.
    "Bachelors don't care about tablecloths.  They don't care about curtains. More importantly, they don't have fully made up nurseries in their homes.  What was her name?"
    He frowned.  Of course she'd known as soon as she went to the second floor of his house.  She wasn't stupid.  "Olga.  We married right before we left Norway, and she had a miscarriage on the ship on the way over. We were sad, but we knew God would bless us with another baby.  And He did.  And that baby died too.  Olga lost five babies, and then she had a pregnancy that lasted.  She went into labor, and I rushed her to the mid-wife who lives about thirty minutes from here.  I didn't want to risk her losing one more baby.  The mid-wife did everything she could, but she lost them both."
    "I'm so sorry, Lars.  I know that must have hurt you."
    "More than I could ever say.  So I promised myself, and Olga, that I'd never love again."  He frowned staring down at his food.  "I don't ever want to love again.  I thought I'd send for a woman, and she wouldn't want love either, because why else would she answer my letter, when I said I didn't want it?  I was sure she would come here, and nothing would matter to me, but having a son.  I could be happy that way."
    "And I came along demanding that you will love me whether you like it or not," Meg said with a self-deprecating grin.
    "It's more than that.  I didn't expect to be able to like the girl who stepped off the train and into my life.  I thought she would be hideously ugly and not able to find a man to marry.  Instead, I find a pretty young woman who simply couldn't handle teaching a schoolroom full of hellions any longer."  Lars shook his head.  "It would have been so much easier for me if you were the hideous woman I expected.  I could have easily forgotten about you when I went to work for the day."
    "And you can't forget me?" Meg found she really liked that idea.  She wanted him to think about her while he was away from her. What woman wouldn't want that?
    "Of course, I can't.  You've single-handedly made my home livable again in a fraction of the time I thought it would take. You've adopted a stray kitten with more warmth than I've shown anyone in two years."
    "When did she die?"
    "February of 1895.  Just under two years ago."
    "Why did you decide to marry if you wanted nothing to do with a wife?" she asked. That was the one part she couldn't understand.
    He frowned, taking a sip of his milk.  "I want a son.  I came here from Norway imagining building a grand empire that I could leave to my sons.  I have no one.  It's hard being out on this lonely prairie day after day and night after night.  Imagine how much harder it would be if you were totally alone."
    She shuddered.  She needed a kitten just to get through the hours he was gone.  Imagining what it had been like for him after Olga's death made her want to cry.  "I don't want to," Meg told him simply.
    "So you do understand how it was.  I would get up early and go to work, so I wouldn't have a chance to be lonely.  I even went to church a couple of times, hoping there would be news of someone moving near, but there never was.  If I had neighbors down the road, it would be different, but this prairie sucks your life away.  After