Page 4 of My True Love Gave to Me

"I appreciate your honesty, Anna, but there's something you should know about me." A change came over Herald’s features. An intensity she'd not seen before radiated from him. "I'm not afraid of competition. I relish it, in fact. If I didn't believe I could win you, I wouldn't have come."

"But why would you even want to win me if my heart belongs to another?"

Slowly his arms uncrossed, and a touch of superiority lit his eyes. "Love is not the only reason to marry. Compatibility comes in many forms. Shared values and goals. Mutual respect. Friendship. I can offer you financial security, a place in society, protection for yourself and your mother."

"And in return, you get my father's newspaper."

Herald smiled. "You make it sound so mercenary."

"Isn't it?" Anna challenged.

"Not to me. I could simply buy your father's business if that was all that really mattered to me. But I want more from life than simply a string of successful enterprises. I want a wife by my side. Someone who understands my work. Someone with whom I can share my thoughts and ideas. Someone who will be my partner and friend. Maybe more, with time. Someone who appreciates the importance of family and will be an amazing mother to our children."

He sounded so earnest. And the picture he painted held its attractions. She wanted the same things, after all. But there was only one man she wanted to share such a life with, and it wasn't Herald Fielder.

"All I ask is that you give me an objective hearing. Don't dismiss what I can offer out of hand without examining it first. You may find the scales tipping in my favor in the end."

Anna considered his words and gave a slow nod. "All right. I promise to give your suit fair consideration. But in return, I ask that you respect my choice, whatever it may be, and abide by my wishes, not my father's."

"Agreed." He held out his arm. "Now that we have that settled, should we head back? It's rather cold out, and I would hate to be the cause of you falling ill."

Anna nodded, more than ready to be done with this awkward conversation. They covered the distance back to the house in half the time, neither one particularly talkative after their conversation by the stream.

Her mother must have seen them coming, for she threw open the back door and waved them in. "Come in and warm yourself by the stove," she urged. As Anna slipped past, her mother touched her arm and stalled her progress. "A gift arrived for you." Her eyes danced, setting off a similar gyration in Anna's belly. "Your father's grumbling about it in the front room."

If he was grumbling, it had to be from Simeon. Without pausing to remove her coat, Anna abandoned the kitchen and hurried to the front room. She found her father bent at the waist, staring at what looked to be a cactus in a pot on the slender table behind the sofa.

"Daddy?"

He straightened and turned abruptly. "I tell you, Anna. That boy has lost his mind. Who in the world sends a cactus as a courting gift? And there's a bullet hanging from the center of the thing. What is that supposed to signify? Is it some kind of threat?"

"Of course it's not a threat." Though it was rather odd. What are you up to, Simeon? Anna approached the table and found an envelope, thankfully still unopened, with her name written across the front in an unrefined scrawl she recognized instantly.

"Tell me, Herald," her father said, alerting Anna to her growing audience, "is that not the most ridiculous bouquet you've ever seen? If you can even call it a bouquet. Next to your roses, it looks like a bulbous weed."

"It is rather . . . unconventional."

Herald's voice faded from Anna's awareness as she opened Simeon's note. There were only two lines, but they made her heart pound.

To Anna, on the first day of Christmas.

From Your True Love

On the first day of Christmas. Why did that phrase sound so familiar? Then it came to her. A children's counting song. On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me . . .

She turned back to the gift and looked at it with new eyes. Saw the reddish-purple bulb of prickly fruit. Looked closer at the bullet tied on with a string. It wasn't ammunition for a pistol. The casing was longer. Like that for a rifle.

"Daddy?" she asked without turning.

He broke off his conversation. "Yes?"

She drew her finger along the line of the metal cylinder. "What do you call a bullet that goes into a rifle?"

He scratched at his jaw. "A cartridge. But what does that have to do with—" He broke off when she started laughing.

She spun around to face him, a smile beaming across her face as she held Simeon's note to her breast. "Oh, Daddy. Don't you see? It's a gift of true love."

He scowled. "Are you feeling all right, Anna?"