The Unintended Groom

“Thank you.”

Harrison watched his sons as Abby exited. He sighed. Great first impression they were making.

Abby entered the room a few minutes later holding a bowl and a clean cloth. While Harrison and Abby cleaned his small wound, Graham squirmed and fretted, acting as though they were torturing him or something. When it was all over, he settled back onto the floor and started playing as if nothing had happened.

“Mademoiselle, dinner is ready.”

The woman standing only a few yards from him was tall with chestnut-blond hair and grayish-green eyes, who spoke with a French accent very much like Colette had earlier.

“Harrison, this is Zoé, Colette’s sister. Oh. I forgot to introduce you to Colette earlier. I was, um, a bit disheveled.” Abby’s soothing laughter reminded him of the musical sound of a sparrow songbird back home in Boston. “Anyway, Zoé, this is Mr. Harrison Kingsley.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you, sir.” She curtsied.

“Nice to meet you, too,” he said. Even though he wasn’t used to people in his society introducing him to their help, he liked it. He liked the informality a lot. Back home it sure wouldn’t be acceptable. But, then again, he wasn’t back home. He was here. A quick glance at Abby, and he was glad he was, too.

“Shall we head into the dining room?” Abby asked.

His heart plummeted to his perfectly shined shoes. Abby had no idea what she was getting herself into when she’d invited his boys to dinner. He should have warned her before accepting her generous offer.

Abby’s arm rested on top of Harrison’s. “It’ll be okay. I have several nephews and nieces. I know how they can be.”

Harrison let out a long breath of relief. It was nice not having to worry about someone wanting to whisk his rambunctious sons off to another room. Or even worse, a boardinghouse, like Prudence had wanted to send them to once they were married. Over his dead body would he have ever allowed her or anyone else to send his boys away.

Good thing this whole arrangement with Abby was strictly business because with her kind heart and gentle way with his boys, he could easily fall for her. And he was never going to let that happen again. He’d been duped once before by a pretty face and a sweet disposition toward his children. Prudence had always acted like she loved children. Loved his sons. Even though he hadn’t loved Prudence, something she was very much aware of, it was because of her love for his sons that he had asked her to marry him. He hoped love would eventually follow. However, he soon discovered that her fondness toward them had been nothing but a ruse to marry a man who could keep her in the style she was accustomed to.

He’d never forget the day when Prudence had roughly handled his boys and said intolerable and cruel things to them. Of course, she didn’t know Harrison had been nearby. Thankfully, he had been. He had immediately put an end to her abuse as well as their relationship, and sent her away for good that very day.

Thus, Harrison needed to remind himself often that Abby was a business partner and nothing else. One look at her smiling blue eyes and sweet face, though, and he knew keeping it strictly business was going to be a challenge.

* * *

The early morning sunrise peeked through the curtain in Abby’s sparsely furnished bedroom. Snuggled under the red-and-white quilt Mother had sent along with her, Abby rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

Her thoughts drifted to the calamitous dinner from the night before.

Poor Harrison had been so mortified.

Not her; she laughed the whole time—inwardly of course.

The near-four-year-olds’ antics had more than tickled her, even when they’d tossed glazed carrots at one another and a piece had landed in her hair. And even when they’d dumped mashed potatoes and gravy onto the floor, or when they’d spilled their milk all over the white linen tablecloth.

The whole thing had been hilarious to her, but not to Harrison, who had profusely apologized, repeatedly. She had assured him none of it had bothered her, that nothing in this world was worth getting fidgety over, and that they were just things that could be washed.

Other than those few incidences, everything had gone quite well. Dinner conversation flowed freely until the boys had fallen asleep with the sides of their faces resting in their dessert.

She and Harrison cleaned them up before he left with the promise of arriving early the next morning.

Speaking of arriving early, Abby tossed her quilt off and went to the window and pulled the curtain back. Dark clouds drifted toward the direction of town bringing with them a Rocky Mountain rainstorm. Didn’t matter. She wouldn’t let anything stop her from today’s mission.

While she donned her peach satin bustle gown and plumed hat, she couldn’t help but think about Harrison’s boys again. The longing to have her own children chopped away at her heart. Why did she think moving away from her beloved nieces and nephews would solve her problem? At the time, it sure made sense. Of course, back then she didn’t know that the town committee wouldn’t let her start her business without a male partner.

And back then, she didn’t know that the man God had placed in her life would have two adorable little boys who would capture her heart with a single look, either.

Abby closed her eyes and sighed.

What was she going to do?

Ever since Doctor Berg, who she’d only gone to see because she had missed several of her monthly cycles in a row, had told her she had womb death, her life had never been the same. The drying up of her womb, something most women started in their forties, meant she would never bear children. Hearing that diagnosis had crushed any hopes she had of being a mother. That dreadful day she had fled from his office and cried until her heart felt numb with grief. Grief for the children she would never carry. That same day, when she told her fiancé, David, about it, he immediately broke off their engagement, telling her how important it was to not just him, but any man to have offspring of his own. Watching him strolling around town with another woman on his arm and later, holding his baby, had been much too painful for her to endure.

Same thing with her siblings. While she was extremely delighted for her brothers and sisters, seeing them happily married with children reminded her daily of what she herself would never experience—a loving husband and a house filled with children.

It was because of all that she decided to open a dinner theater far away from Paradise Haven. She loved how when she was on stage acting, or sitting in the audience watching, she was transported into another world.

A world of happily ever afters.

A world she could participate in, instead of standing on the sidelines and being an observer only.

Of course, none of it was reality, but still, it helped take her mind off the pain of her reality.

Thinking about reality, she needed to hustle her body downstairs. Harrison would be there any minute to pick her up.

At the bottom of the winding staircase, Abby saw Veronique heading toward the front door.

Harrison must already be here.

“Good morning, Monsieur Kingsley. Won’t you come in?” Veronique stepped aside to let him in. “May I take your chapeau, sir?” He handed his fedora to Veronique, who hung it on the hat rack.

“Thank you. Veronique, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.”

His gaze shifted from Veronique and onto Abby as she strolled toward him.

Veronique slipped away.

The closer Abby got to him, the more she realized no one should be allowed to be that handsome. It wasn’t fair to women who were trying to not notice that fact. Women, like herself, who had to disengage her emotions in order to guard her heart where the male species was concerned. Still, she couldn’t help admire how nice he looked.

Dressed in a finely tailored, dark gray suit with a light gray waistcoat, white satin shirt and a dark gray neckerchief, he made an intimidating presence. Just what was needed when going up against the committee board.

“Good morning,” she said with a bright and chipper pitch to her voice.

“Good morning to you. You look very nice.”

“So do you.”

“Thank you, ma’am. Well, are you ready for this?”

“Am I ever.” She couldn’t wait to see the mayor’s face or the committee members’ faces, whichever of them would be there this morning, when she walked in with Harrison.