An April Bride

ZONDERVAN

An April Bride

Copyright © 2014 by Lenora Worth

ePub Edition © February 2014: ISBN 9780310338697

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan,
Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible,
New International Version
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, NIV
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Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

Cover design: Kristen Vasgaard

Interior design: James A. Phinney

To Shiny. You know who you are! I love you.
:)

Contents

Acknowledgments

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Discussion Questions

An Excerpt from a May Bride

About the Author

I
thank God for the opportunity to be a part of this whimsical, wonderful wedding series. Who doesn’t love a wedding? I’d also like to thank Ami McConnell and Becky Philpot, two awesome editors who actually saw something in my work and encouraged me during this project. To all the other amazing authors involved—I appreciate the company and the encouragement. And to my marketing department at HarperCollins Christian Publishing—Wow! Also, to my hardworking agent Pam Hopkins, thank you so much for everything you do.

And finally, to my husband, Don. Thank you for putting up with my strange writer moods and for being a great “manager.” I love you, Big D.

A
pril showers bring May flowers.”

That old saying might hold true, but in this particular garden spring had already arrived. And just in time for the big event. A wedding. Her wedding to the man she’d loved since she was five years old. She and Marshall had met in kindergarten and gone all the way through school together and attended the same church. They’d been high school sweethearts who’d always planned to be married someday. So why was she so afraid today?

Stella Carson loved April. It was the one month when the Louisiana heat and humidity seemed bearable, the one month when the whole landscape turned into a blaze of riotous color that rivaled any Monet painting. She loved spring and the scent of the jasmine blossoms that covered the pergola her daddy had built in the backyard when she was only three years old. She loved the dazzle of the hot pink hibiscus bushes on her mother’s back porch, and she especially loved
the sassy salmon-colored azaleas that lined the white picket fence between the horse pasture and the front drive.

Right now, she stood admiring her mother’s prize hydrangeas. The big, blue clustered blossoms would soon spill out of the old, hardy bushes that ran across the front porch line. She planned to have those colors in her wedding—blues and mauves, lavenders and delicate pinks, just like the colors in this yard each spring. And hopefully, some hydrangeas sprinkled here and there, even if they had to be ordered from a nursery.

Across the old country road, the Mississippi River gurgled and whirled as it flowed out to the Gulf of Mexico. Wishing her worries could flow away with the river, Stella leaned over the second-floor railing of Flower Bend—the house she’d grown up in—and marveled at God’s beauty. The old moss-draped live oaks swayed and creaked in the late afternoon wind. She could hear the squirrels quarreling and playing as they rushed over the gray, wrinkled bark, could hear the blue jays fussing at each other as they fluttered from tree to tree.

Stella allowed the beauty of this old place to soothe her while she said yet another prayer, asking God to help her through the next month. She planned to get married at the church and have the reception here in the garden. She’d dreamed of this for most of her life.

But this spring was both special and confusing. Her fiancé, Marshall, was coming home today, and Stella was so thankful. Her soldier boy was returning from the Middle East to marry her in four weeks. He’d been back stateside for a while now, and she’d only seen him once. He’d been in the hospital in Germany for a month, then in Maryland for over
two months, recovering from injuries he’d received when an IED—a bomb—exploded near his Humvee.

Stella thought back on that awful time, remembering how worried she’d been after Marshall’s parents had called her with the bad news. She’d immediately wanted to go to him, but his parents had asked her to wait. They’d rushed to his side in Germany and called Stella to let her know the extent of his injuries. Marshall had been in a coma when he’d arrived at the hospital in Germany. When he arrived back in the United States, she’d visited him but he’d been so groggy and disoriented, things didn’t go very well. He didn’t seem to know anyone, which only agitated him. So she’d come back home to wait and pray. When she’d finally been able to talk to him on the phone, he’d asked that she stay away. Asked that she give him time to heal and adjust. They’d talked on the phone once or twice a week, but something about those conversations bothered Stella. Marsh, as she’d always called him, just didn’t sound the same. When she’d asked him about the wedding, he’d been vague.

“Should we postpone the wedding, Marsh? If you’re not well enough . . .”

“Keep the date, Stella,” he’d said. “I’ll be better by April. I promise.”

She’d waited. She’d prayed. She’d planned.

Now he was coming home.

And she was terrified.

“Stella, where are you?”

Stella whirled at the sound of her mother’s singsong voice. “Coming, Mama.” Her wedge sandals tapped their way back into her bedroom. “I’m almost ready.”

Checking her reflection once more, she nervously smoothed her blue sundress and touched a hand to her dark blonde hair. What would he think when he saw her?

Her mother, Joyce, stood at the open door and grinned, her hands on her hips. “Are you excited?”

“I’m about to burst with pure joy,” Stella admitted. “But I’m a little worried too.”

“Worried? About what?” Her mother had dressed in her usual conservative manner in a white short-sleeved blouse and crisp, beige linen pants.

Stella finished checking her hair and makeup in the mirror of the antique vanity that had belonged to her maternal grandmother. “What if . . . what if Marsh doesn’t feel the same about me anymore, about this marriage?”

Joyce shook her head and tugged Stella down on the puffy floral comforter covering the tester bed. “Honey, Marshall Henderson gave his heart to you twenty years ago when you hit him with a water balloon at the annual church picnic. Being gone for a year isn’t going to change that one little bit.”

“I love him too,” Stella replied, doubt clouding her joy. “But . . . he’s been to a place we can’t even imagine. He’s a hero, Mama. But he’s also seen and done things that . . .”

Her mother frowned. “You’re afraid serving his country might have changed him? Or that he’s changed because of his injury?”

Stella nodded. “Yes. He seems so disoriented over the phone and . . . him not wanting me there with him really hurt me, but I had to do what was best for him. He used to be so strong and sure, but . . . he was wounded. I know his physical wounds will heal, but what about how he feels?
What if his feelings for me have changed? I’ve researched post-traumatic stress disorder and head injuries enough to know that they can both be tough on relationships. He could suffer from bouts of depression and anger and possibly memory loss.”

She’d practically memorized each Internet article and book chapter she’d found in spare moments at work. After all, running a bookstore with Internet access did have its perks.