Faith (2 page)

Finally, June rose and lit the lantern. Mellow light filtered
from the coal-oil lamp, forming a warm, symmetrical pattern on the frozen ground outside the parlor window.

Tonight was Faith's turn to fix supper. She disappeared
into the kitchen while June and Hope kept Thalia company
in the parlor.

Pumping water into the porcelain coffeepot, Faith listened
to Hope's infectious laughter as she thumbed through the
family album, regaling Thalia with stories of happier times.

Beautiful Hope.

Faith the tomboy.

June the caregiver.

Frowning, Faith measured coffee into the pot and thought about the decision to marry and leave Cold Water. She
ignored the tight knot curled in the pit of her stomach.
Weeks of prayer and thought had gone into her decision.
She had prayed for God's wisdom, and he had sent her an
answer. Nicholas Shepherd's letter gave her hope. Nicholas
needed a wife, and she needed a husband. She hoped the
union would develop into one of loving devotion, but she
would settle for a home with a godly man. During prayer
she had felt God's guidance for her to embark upon this
marriage.

The idea of leaving Cold Water saddened her. Aunt
Thalia wouldn't enjoy good health forever. Who would
care for Thalia when she was gone? And who was this man
she was about to marry-this Nicholas Shepherd? She really
knew nothing about him other than that he lived with his
mother in Deliverance, Texas, a small community outside
San Antonio, and that he penned a neat, concise letter.

Sighing, she pushed a stray lock of hair off her cheek. Not
much to base a future on. Through correspondence she'd
learned Nicholas was in his midthirties and a hard worker.
She was nineteen, but the difference in their ages didn't
bother her; she found older men more interesting. And she
was a hard worker. She smiled, warming to the idea of a
husband who would always treat her well, who would not
allow her to want for anything, and who promised to be a
wonderful papa to her children. What more could a woman
ask?

She would work hard to be an obedient wife to Nicholas
Shepherd. The Lord instructed wives to obey their hus bands, and that she would. It bothered her not a whit that
Nicholas's mother would share their home. Mother Shepherd could see to household duties, duties Faith abhorred,
while Faith worked beside her husband in the fields. The
smell of sunshine and new clover was far more enticing than
the stench of cooking cabbage and a tub full of dirty laundry.

Laying slices of ham in a cold skillet, Faith sobered, realizing how very much she would miss her sisters. Hope would
travel to Kentucky, June to Seattle. She herself would reside
in Texas.

Worlds apart.

The thought of June, the youngest sibling, brought a
smile to her face. June was impulsive, awkward at times, but
with a heart as big as a ten-gallon bucket. Unlike Hope,
June wasn't blessed with beauty; she was plain, a wallflower,
some said, but with patience a saint would envy. June possessed a sweet, inner light superior to her sisters'. June was
the caretaker, the maternal one. Faith prayed daily that
June's husband would be a man who would value June's
heart of gold and would never break her spirit.

Faith asked the Lord for patience for Hope's soon-to-be
husband. He would need plenty of it. The family beauty
was shamelessly spoiled. Hope assumed the world revolved
around her wants and wishes. Hope's husband would need
to be blessed with a wagonload of fortitude to contend with
his new bride.

Nicholas Shepherd would need a hefty dose of patience
himself. Those who knew Faith said she could be cheerful to a fault, but she knew she had to work hard at times to
accept God's will. It wasn't always what she expected, and
she didn't always understand it.

The sisters would exchange newsy letters and Christmas
cards, but Faith didn't want to think about how long it
would be before they saw each other again.

Sighing, she realized the new lives they each faced were
fraught with trials and tribulations, but God had always fulfilled his promise to watch over them. He had upheld them
though Mania's death, overseen June's raising, and filled
times of uncertainty with hope of a brighter tomorrow.
When Papa died, they'd felt God's all-caring presence. He
was there to hear their cries of anguish and see them
through the ordeal of burial. Faith had no less faith that he
would continue to care for them now.

Faith.

Papa had always said that faith would see them through
whatever trials they encountered.

Besides-she shuddered as she turned a slice of
ham-anything the future held had to be more appealing
than Edsel Martin.

Deliverance, Texas

Late 1800s

SHE'S late." Liza Shepherd slipped a pinch of
snuff into the corner of her mouth, then fanned herself with
a scented hanky.

Nicholas checked his pocket watch a fourth time, flipping
it closed. Mother was right. His bride-to-be was late. Any
other day the stage would be on time. He poked a finger
into his perspiration-soaked collar, silently cursing the heat.
He'd wasted half a day's work on Miss Kallahan, time he
could ill afford. Fence was down in the north forty, and
ninety acres of hay lay waiting to fall beneath the scythe
before rain fell. He glanced toward the bend in the road,
his brows drawn in a deep frown. Where was she?

Calm down, Nicholas. Work does not come before family obliOtions. Why did he constantly have to remind himself of that?

A hot Texas sun scorched the top of his Stetson. Fire ants scurried across the parched soil as the town band unpacked
their instruments. Tubas and drums sounded in disjointed
harmony. He wished the town wouldn't make such a fuss
over Miss Kallahan. You'd think he was the first man ever
to send for a mail-order bride-which he wasn't. Layman
Snow sent for one a year ago, and everything between the
newlyweds was working out fine.

Horses tied at hitching posts lazily swatted flies from their
broad, sweaty rumps as the hullabaloo heightened.

High noon, and Deliverance was teeming with people.

Men and women gathered on the porch of Oren Stokes's
general store. The men craned their necks while womenfolk
gossiped among themselves. A few loners discussed weather
and crops, but all ears were tuned for the stage's arrival.

Nicholas ignored the curious looks sent his direction. Interest was normal. A man his age about to take a wife fifteen
years his junior? Who wouldn't gawk? Running a finger
inside the rim of his perspiration-soaked collar, he craned to
see above the crowd. What was keeping that stage? It would
be dark before he finished chores. He stiffened when he
heard Molly Anderson's anxious whispers to Etta Larkin.

"What is Nicholas thinking-taking a wife now?"

"Why, I can't imagine. He owns everything in sight and
has enough money to burn a wet mule. What does he want
with a wife?"

"I hear he wants another woman in the house to keep
Liza company."

"With the mood Liza's in lately, she'll run the poor girl
off before sunset."

"Such a pity-the Shepherds got no one to leave all that
money to."

"No, nary a kin left."

Nicholas turned a deaf ear to the town gossips. What he
did, or thought, was his business, and he intended to keep it
that way.

A smile played at the corners of his mouth when he
thought about what he'd done. Placing an ad for a mailorder bride wasn't something he'd ordinarily consider. But
these were not ordinary times. In the past two years since
his father had died, he and Mama had been at loose ends.

Eighteen years ago he'd thought love was necessary to
marry. Now the mere thought of romance at his age made
him laugh. He'd lost his chance at love when he failed to
marry Rachel.

Looking back, he realized Rachel had been his one chance
at marital happiness. But at the time, he wasn't sure he was in
love with her. What was love supposed to feel like? He'd certainly been fond of her, and she'd gotten along well with
Mama-something not many could claim, especially these
days. Rachel was a gentle woman, and in hindsight he knew
he should have married her. He had come to realize that
there was more to a satisfying union than love. Mama and
Papa's marriage had taught him that love of God, trust, the
ability to get along, mutual respect-those were the important elements in a marriage. Abe Shepherd had loved Liza,
but even more, he had respected her. Nicholas knew he
could have built that kind of relationship with Rachel if he
had acted before it was too late.

Well, water over the dam. Rachel had married Joe Lanner, and Nicholas had finally faced up to the knowledge
that love had passed him by. He would turn thirty-five in
January, and he had no heir. There was no blood kin to
carry on the Shepherd name. No one to leave Shepherd
land and resources to.

Mama thought he'd lost his mind when he sent for a
mail-order bride, and maybe he had.

He smiled as he recalled her tirade when he told her what
he'd done-"Why on God's green earth would you want
to complicate our lives by marryin' a stranger?"

Why indeed? he thought. God had blessed him mightily.
He could stand at the top of Shepherd's Mountain, and for
as far as the eye could see there was nothing but Shepherd
land.

Shepherd cattle.

Shepherd pastures.

Shepherd outbuildings.

Some even said the moon belonged to Shepherd-Shepherd's Moon, the town called it, because of the way it rose
over the tops of his trees, beautiful, noble in God's glory.
God had been good to him, better than he deserved. He
owned all he wanted and more, yet at times he felt as poor
as a pauper.

The emptiness gnawed at him, a misery that no abundance of material possessions could assuage. Where was the
love he should have known? Rachel had walked through
his life, then walked out of it. Had he been so busy acquiring material wealth that he let the one missing ingredient in his life, the love of a woman, slip past him? The question
haunted him because he knew the answer: He had let
Rachel walk away and marry a man who, rumor had it,
now drank and mistreated her. He should have seen it
coming Joe was not a godly man. But he'd done nothing
to stop her, and now he had to watch her suffer for his
mistake.

There were other women in the town who would have
given anything to marry Nicholas Shepherd, but he had
never loved any of them. Then, after his father died and
Mama became so unlike herself-so moody, so irritable, so
stingy-he didn't think anyone would put up with her. At
the same time, he wondered if what she needed more than
anything was another woman around to talk with, get her
mind off her grief. He began to think that maybe he should
marry-not for love, but for other reasons. To have someone to keep Mama company, help her around the house.
Mama wouldn't think of hiring help, though they could
afford it. But maybe a daughter-in-law would be a different
matter.

Then there was the matter of an heir. What good was
all his fortune if he had no one to leave it to? Perhaps a
daughter-in-law, and eventually grandchildren, would help
Mama and make all his hard work mean something. He had
amassed a fortune, and it would be a shame if no blood kin
were able to enjoy it.

He had been praying over the matter when he'd come
across the ad in the journal for a mail-order bride, and the
thought intrigued him. The answer to his problem, and his prayers, suddenly seemed crystal clear: He would send for a
mail-order bride. Much like ordering a seed catalogue, but
with more pleasant results. He would, in essence, purchase
a decent, Christian woman to marry with no emotional
strings attached.

This marriage between Miss Kallahan and him would not
be the covenant of love that his parents had had; this was a
compromise. He needed a wife, and according to Miss Kallahan's letters, she was seeking a husband. He had prayed that
God would send him a righteous woman to be his helpmate.
To fill his lonely hours. Someone who would be a comfortable companion. Love didn't figure into the picture. When
Miss Kallahan accepted his proposal, he accepted that God
had chosen the proper woman to meet his needs.

Admittedly, he'd grown set in his ways; having a wife
underfoot would take some getting used to. He valued
peace and quiet. What his new bride did with her time
would be up to her; he would make no demands on her
other than that she help Mama around the house, if
Mama would permit it. And he did like the thought of
children-eventually-although he wasn't marrying a
brood mare.

Mama didn't seem to care about anything anymore. She
still grieved for Papa, though he'd been dead almost two
years now. Nicholas's fervent hope was that having another
woman in the house, someone Mama could talk and relate
to, would improve her disposition, although he wasn't
going to kid himself. He couldn't count on Mama's taking
to another woman in the house. But as long as Faith under stood her role, the two women should make do with the
situation.