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

spending two years alone on the prairie, it started to feel like a jail.  I couldn't take another winter alone.  I needed to have someone to face it with me."
    Meg reached out and took his hand in hers, trying to give him comfort.  "Then let me face it with you.  We may not be in love.  We may never love one another.  But we can face it as friends and companions, and maybe love will grow from that."
    Lars nodded, feeling like he'd just run the gauntlet.  Never in his life had he bared his soul the way he'd just done with Meg, and she'd been wonderful.  He brought her fingers to his lips.  "Yes, let's face it together."
    She felt like they'd made a sort of peace, and she was happy with that.  "I've gotten most of the house cleaned," she said, changing the subject to one that would be easier for him.  "I want to clean the basement tomorrow if you don't mind.  I'll probably rearrange some things, so they'll make more sense to me."
    He shrugged.  "I don't mind that at all.  Do what needs to be done."  Why would he care if she rearranged the basement? 
    After finishing the supper dishes, she started to go up to her room with a book, but he stopped her.  "Come sit in the parlor with me," he said.  "We'll talk and get to know each other better."
    Meg blinked in surprise, but she nodded.  "I'd like that a lot."  She was very surprised at his attitude reversal, but she had no complaints about it at all.  It was nice to have a husband who actually wanted to spend some time with her.
    They went into the parlor, and he sat on the sofa, patting the spot next to him.  "I won't bite," he said with a grin.
    She laughed and took the spot right beside him on the couch.  She wasn't worried that he'd bite, but she wasn't certain just how much touching she was willing to do.  "I'm not afraid of you."
    He chuckled, his arm going around her shoulders.  "Tell me where you grew up."
    She was surprised at the question.  He was acting like he was courting her all of a sudden, and she wasn't quite certain how to react.  With him it was either treat her like the enemy or like he was courting her.  How was she supposed to know which one it would be?
    "I'm the daughter of Irish immigrants.  My mother was the cook for a wealthy Boston family, and my father was the gardener and handyman.  We lived in a small house behind the mansion of the family they worked for. There were seven of us, and Mama often took us girls to help her work after school or on school holidays.  The boys worked with Papa.  I'm the youngest, so I was last at home.  I think Mama was happy when I finally moved out."
    "You do?  They didn't like having children at home?"  Norwegian families were large and usually very close knit, and he'd thought it was the same way with the Irish.
    "Oh, they loved me.  Don't get me wrong.  My eldest brother was already married when I was born.  I was a bit of an afterthought and a big surprise to my parents.  They thought they were almost done raising children when I came along."
    He grinned.  "A good surprise, I'm sure."
    "Oh, sure I was.  But they were tired after all those years of child rearing, and then they got me."  She smiled.  "They were very good to me, and I was a happy child.  I loved to go with mother to work and help her cook.  She always told me I'd make some man a wonderful wife someday, because cooking came so naturally to me."
    "But you were a schoolteacher?"
    She shrugged.  "I wanted to be independent for a while before I married.   I was certain I would be a stronger woman because of it.  So I moved to Beckham and taught there.  I thought I'd teach for a year or two, and then I'd be willing to marry.  It never occurred to me that my first school term would be so awful."  She shuddered.  "The demon horde was something else.  I didn't mind the frogs in my desk.  The lizards were bad, but I could deal with those as well.  The snakes got me.  And the mice!  Oh, the day they put four