Merry, page 1
part #1 of Mistletoe Falls Christmas Brides Series
Merry
MISTLETOE FALLS CHRISTMAS BRIDES
PEGGY MCKENZIE
MERRY Copyright © 2024 by Peggy McKenzie
The right of PEGGY MCKENZIE and COLUMBINE PUBLISHING COMPANY AKA PEGGY MCKENZIE BOOKS to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This story, characters, novel, audiobook, and other works are copyrighted by and/or trademarks of Peggy McKenzie and Peggy McKenzie writing as Nikki Malone. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher and copyright owner, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review, nor otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events in this publication are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Cover: Wicked Smart Designs
Editor: Tina's Editing Services
WHERE LOVE BECOMES LEGENDARY and PEGGY McKENZIE are registered trademarks. All rights reserved.
About this book
Merry
Another Mistletoe Falls Christmas Bride
Christmas comes to Mistletoe Falls
one mail-order bride at a time!
“Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many—not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.” Charles Dickens.
Mistletoe Falls Christmas Brides Series
(A Western Historical Romance)
The greatest gift of all is the love that grows in the most unexpected places.
In the heart of the rugged Montana Territory, Leif McAlister, a proud and towering logger, finds his life forever changed after a heroic act leaves him injured and unable to fend for himself. Forced to swallow his pride, he places an advertisement for a wife in the hopes of finding a sweet, dutiful woman to care for him and his homestead.
From the bustling streets of New York City, Merry O'Brien, a spirited Irish immigrant with a head full of dreams and a past she'd rather forget, answers an advertisement for a mail-order bride. She leaves behind the only life she's known and nothing left to lose. With a ticket in her hand and hope in her heart, she heads to Mistletoe Falls, a tiny logging town high in the mountains, and with any luck at all, she'll find a place where she truly belongs.
But problems are on the horizon. Merry is not the docile bride Leif expected. She challenges him at every turn with her fiery red hair and even fiercer spirit. As the snow falls and the holiday season approaches, they forge an unexpected bond that neither saw coming, but is it enough to build a life together as husband and wife?
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Epilogue
Other books in this series
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A Note from Peggy
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About the Author
More great reads…
The End
Chapter One
The stench of the alley clung to Merry O’Brien’s clothes as she trudged through the narrow back streets of New York City. The morning fog hung low, obscuring the dirty streets and mingling with the smell of rotting garbage, coal smoke, and horse manure.
She pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders, although her efforts did little to keep the chill away from her too-thin, food-deprived body. Her feet were chilled and her socks dampened through her boots, worn thin and patched in places.
Every step she took through the muck reminded her she was one step closer to the pathetic, dismal daily grind that had become her life. Each step was a reminder that no matter how hard she worked, she’d never be able to outrun the poverty that had followed her across an ocean from her beloved Ireland.
It had been two years since she had left her home country, two long years since she had stepped off that ship onto American soil with the kind of hope only desperation could forge. New York City had held promise for her then. Promise of the possibility she could build a new life free from the shadows of hunger and loss. But the city had shown its true face quickly enough. It was no place for dreamers—especially not for a girl with a brogue in her voice and a look of hunger in her eyes.
Merry kept her head down as she passed the men loitering outside the saloons. Their eyes followed her, and she could feel their leers, the sneers that accompanied them. She knew better than to look up, to make eye contact. Women like her—Irish girls with no resources and nothing, or no one but their own hands to rely on—were easy targets. The insults had become routine, just another sound in the cacophony of the city’s harshness.
The names, the spitting—she had learned to move quickly and keep her eyes on the ground. She couldn’t afford another scrape; last time, the bruises and cuts had taken weeks to heal. She was just grateful a copper was close enough to hear her screams. Otherwise, bruises and cuts might not have been all she got from the filthy degenerate who accosted her.
Merry ducked into the narrow passage leading to the service door, feeling the familiar heaviness settle into her shoulders. The day’s work awaited her, the same as it had for months—scrubbing, wringing, and lifting until her arms ached and her fingers bled.
The laundries were already billowing steam by the time she reached the corner of Mulberry Street. Thick clouds of hot air pouring from the basement grates turned the morning air heavy and damp.
She shoved the door open with her hip and stepped inside, greeted by the oppressive heat of the basement laundry. The room was a blur of movement—women hunched over tubs, their faces drawn and pale, their hands red and raw from the lye soap and scalding water. The air was filled with the hiss of steam, splashes of water, and the relentless murmur of the almost silent suffering that had become the soundtrack of her life.
Merry moved through the laundry to her station, a small wooden tub set up against a cracked, water-stained wall. She nodded at Mrs. Flanagan, the woman beside her who had been the closest thing to a friend she’d found in this city. “Morning, Mrs. Flanagan.”
“Mornin’, Merry,” the older woman replied, her voice weary. There was a nod of understanding between them. It was the same every day—another long stretch of hours to get through before they could retreat to their rooms, which offered little comfort, and depending on the other tenant activities below and above their rooms whether or not they got any rest.
The work began, and Merry plunged her hands into the hot, soapy water, wincing as the heat bit into the cracked skin of her fingers. She grabbed the first shirt, a man’s rough work shirt, stained with grease and sweat, and scrubbed it against the washboard. The rhythm was familiar, almost mechanical—back and forth, back and forth—her hands moving without thought as her mind wandered. She had no room for dreams anymore, not in this place, but the memories of a beautiful Ireland slipped through sometimes, unbidden. Bittersweet.
She could still see the hills, brown with potato rot, and the small stone cottage where she had lived with her aunt and uncle after her parents died when she was just an infant. Her father’s youngest sister, Catherine, and her husband, John, took her in and raised her as one of their own.
In the years that followed, Merry ended up in the middle of the brood of seven. The image was clear. They were poor and desperate and stacked on top of one another until the breaking point finally came when Uncle John stopped coming home and Aunt Catherine had to take in laundry and sewing to buy peat to heat the stove.
Unable to pay her tenant’s rent to the Crown estates, the Crown decided it was cheaper to ship unpaying tenants overseas to welcoming ports such as Canada and America.
What was left of Merry’s family was offered passage to America. It wasn’t a cheap venture for estate owners to take this position, but she supposed many of them had decided it would cost less to ship all of their indigent tenants off their estates than to maintain those who couldn’t pay their rent.
Her aunt had refused the offer saying she would rather die than leave Ireland and her cousins refused out of responsibility to take care of their ailing mother. Within a month of the offer, her aunt had done just that and the cousins had moved in with various relatives that could—or would—take them in while Merry happily boarded a ship and sailed to New York with the promise of a new start.
A new dream.
To work hard and build something new, but the promise of the city had soured and that life was just a dream all right. Oftentimes, it had turned into a nightmare.
The hours dragged on, the heat turning the room into a furnace as the steam hissed and billowed. Merry’s back ached from bending over the tub, and her arms felt heavy, the muscles burning with every movement.
By the time the midday bell rang, signaling a brief break, she felt as though she’d aged a decade. She wiped her hands on her apron, wincing at the sight of her cracked, red skin. Her fingers were swollen, the knuckles raw from the constant scrubbing.
She reached into her pocket for the small piece of bread she had managed to save from the night before. It was stale and dry, but it was all she had. She sank down onto an overturned crate, nibbling at the bread and letting her eyes wander over the room. The other women sat in silence too, their faces blank and tired. No one spoke—there was nothing to say that hadn’t been said a hundred times before.
The basement was stifling, the air so thick it felt like it was pressing down on her. Merry let her eyes drift to the small, dirty window high up on the wall. Through the grime, she could just make out a sliver of blue sky.
For a brief moment, she imagined herself somewhere else—anywhere else. Somewhere with fresh air and open fields, a place where the sun felt warm on her skin instead of the suffocating heat of the laundry.
But the bell rang again, and the dream dissolved like smoke. She stood, the ache in her legs and back intensifying as she returned to her station. The rhythm resumed—scrub, wring, scrub again—until her arms felt like lead weights.
The foreman’s eyes, sharp and watchful, roved over the room. Merry kept her head down, her movements quick and efficient. She knew what happened if you slowed down. Docked pay, harsh words—punishments she could not afford.
The hours crawled by, each one bleeding into the next, until finally, the light through the high window began to fade. The final bell rang, and Merry let out a sigh of relief. She rinsed her hands in the tub, the water cold and murky now, and dried them on her apron. Her skin felt tight and sore, the edges of her fingers cracked and bleeding. She clenched her hands into fists, hiding them as she moved toward the door.
The street was alive with the sounds of the evening rush—vendors shouting, carts clattering, and the distant rumble of carriages on cobblestone. She pulled her shawl tight against the chill and started the long walk back to her building. Her feet, blistered and sore, throbbed with every step.
She walked faster, keeping her head down as she, once again, passed groups of men clustered on corners.
Her building loomed ahead, a hulking structure of crumbling brick and broken windows wedged between two larger tenements. She slipped inside, the familiar creak of the door echoing in the narrow hallway. The stairwell was dim, lit only by a single flickering gas lamp at the far end. The wood groaned under her weight as she climbed the steps to the cracked and weathered door to her room.
The key stuck in the lock, as it always did, but after a moment of jiggling, she managed to get it open. The room greeted her with its familiar musty smell, the walls damp from the leak that had yet to be fixed. A small bed sat in the corner, the thin blanket barely enough to keep the night’s chill at bay. She moved to the tiny stove, lighting the match with practiced hands. The flame flickered weakly as she set a pot of water to boil.
She watched the water, feeling the exhaustion settle into her bones. The day’s work had taken its toll, as it always did, but tonight felt heavier somehow. She let her gaze wander around the room—the peeling wallpaper, the cracked plaster, the window covered in grime. This was her life now, day in and day out, and the weight of it pressed down on her until it felt like she could hardly breathe.
When the water finally boiled, she spooned in a few oats, stirring slowly as the thin gruel bubbled. It wasn’t much, but it was all she had. As she ate, she stared at the wall, letting the sounds of the city fade into the background. The shouts, the rattle of carts, the distant cries of children playing—all of it blurred into a single hum, the noise of a city that had no place for someone like her.
As the night deepened, Merry lay on the narrow bed, pulling the blanket up to her chin. The cold crept in through the cracks in the walls, settling into her bones. She closed her eyes, willing herself to sleep, but the ache in her hands and the heaviness in her heart kept her awake long after the street outside had quieted.
It was another day done, another day survived. But as she stared up at the ceiling, she couldn’t help but wonder how many more days like this she could endure.
Chapter Two
The smell of pine and fresh sawdust filled the air, mingling with the faint chill of early winter creeping in. The Montana wilderness felt alive, every gust of wind rustling through the treetops, every birdcall echoing like a familiar refrain.
Leif McAlister tightened his grip on the axe, feeling the solid, familiar weight of the handle in his hand. The rhythmic swing, the sharp thunk as the blade bit into the wood, was a comfort—something steady in a world that often felt anything but. Out here, among the towering pines and the call of hawks overhead, he felt at peace, in control—something he’d clung to ever since he was a boy of eleven alone in the world.
He scanned the line of trees ahead, calculating their fall paths and making sure his men kept to the safety protocols he’d drilled into them. A logger’s life was no small gamble; each swing of the axe was a wager against the forest, and the stakes were always high. His eyes landed on Hank, a new hire, barely more than a boy. The kid had energy, but no sense of the forest’s language yet, no understanding of the unspoken rules that governed the wilderness.
“Watch your line, Hank,” Leif called out, his voice carrying over the steady rhythm of axes and saws. The kid flinched, startled, but nodded quickly. Leif’s eyes narrowed, watching as Hank adjusted his stance. He was eager, but too eager. It reminded Leif of himself at that age—young, stubborn, and with everything to prove.
But he knew, better than most, that the forest didn’t care about your pride. It only listened to those who knew how to respect its power.
The wind picked up suddenly, cold fingers tugged at Leif’s collar and ruffled his hair. He paused, sensing the shift. Something about it set his instincts on edge, and he felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. He scanned the line of pines, eyes narrowing as he spotted one tree swaying more than the others—its angle all wrong. The weight wasn’t balanced; it leaned precariously, creaking under the pressure of the wind.
“Hank, move! Get back!” Leif shouted, his voice sharp and urgent. The command was clear, and he expected the boy to react instantly. But Hank froze, eyes wide as he stared up at the massive pine groaning above him. Fear locked him in place, his hands tightening around the axe handle as if it could anchor him to safety.
Leif’s feet were already moving, his pulse hammering in his ears. He’d survived alone since he was eleven—no one ever had his back, and he never expected them to. That was a lesson he’d learned early, the hard way, and it had kept him alive all these years. A man could only count on himself. The forest, with its harsh beauty and unforgiving nature, had a way of testing that belief. Now, he just needed to act, to get Hank out of harm’s way before the forest claimed another victim.
“Hank!” Leif roared as he closed the distance, his voice thundered through the trees. He reached the boy, grabbed his shoulder, and shoved him aside just as the tree came crashing down. The sound was deafening—like thunder as the trunk splintered and branches snapped like brittle bones. For a heartbeat, everything was silent.
Then pain, hot and sharp, lanced through Leif’s leg as a heavy branch slammed into him, knocking him to the ground. The force drove the breath from his lungs, and he felt the metallic tang of blood as his mouth filled with the taste of iron. Pain radiated up his leg, a deep, throbbing ache that blurred his vision and sent fire through every nerve.
