The Heart's Frontier (34 page)
Read The Heart's Frontier Online
Authors: Lori Copeland
Tags: #Kansas, #Families, #Outlaws, #Amish, #Love Stories, #Historical, #Romance, #Families - Travel, #Fiction, #Christian Fiction, #Cattle drives, #Cowboys, #Travel, #Western, #Christian, #Amish - Kansas
“You’re right. It’s not the same.”
Maummi
grunted in acknowledgment of the rare display of affection. As a rule, the Amish showed their care for one another through hard work and service, not through physical gestures, but
Maummi
prolonged the contact by lingering a moment before moving away to pick up a bowl of sauerkraut salad from the counter.
“Well, perhaps Amos will find a wife soon.” Emma cast an anxious gaze over the table. “Everything is ready. I hope Papa will like my beef-and-noodles casserole.”
Emma tried so hard to please Papa, as though food could overcome the pain of having his oldest daughter leave the Amish way of life. Not that he ever said a word, but Rebecca had seen the hurt in his eyes when he watched his grandson at play, and she knew he deeply regretted the fact that Lucas was being raised in a different faith.
“At least they are Christian,”
Maummi
had said more than once.
“I’m sure he will,” Rebecca assured her sister. “Do you want me to call them in?”
Emma nodded and bent over the table to lift the cover from the butter dish. “Oh,
Maummi
, I am supposed to pass along a greeting. Mr. McCann stopped by last week.”
Rebecca stopped halfway to the door. McCann was the cook on the cattle drive where Emma had met Luke and she had met Jesse.
“
Him
. The man didn’t know a spice from a weed until I taught him.”
Maummi
waved a hand in feigned dismissal, though Rebecca saw a spark of interest in her hooded eyes. “Happened to be nearby, did he?”
“He was on his way south to join a cattle drive. He’d been cooking for a restaurant over in Abilene, but he said he missed the trail.” Emma removed another lid, this one covering a dish of apple butter. “He stayed for supper and entertained us with tales of life in town and news of some of the old team. Remember Charlie? He married and bought a place down in Arizona territory last year. And Griff moved down there to help him get set up.”
Excitement sparked along Rebecca’s spine. These men were all friends of Jesse’s.
She adopted a casual expression. “Did he mention anyone else? Like…” She swallowed, and schooled her voice. “Like Jesse Montgomery, maybe?”
Emma looked up. “Yes, he did. Luke asked, of course, and Mr. McCann said he’d heard that Jesse had settled over near Lawrence. He wasn’t sure what he was doing there.” She shook her head, disbelief on her features. “Luke could hardly believe it. He thought Jesse would never leave the trail.”
Lawrence! Rebecca’s pulse kicked into a gallop and her head went light. Jesse, her one true love, was in Kansas. On the other side of the state from Apple Grove, true, but Lawrence was a far sight closer than Texas.
A nagging thought tugged at her soaring heart. If he lived in the same state as she, then why hadn’t he come to her? He knew where she lived. Not a day in the past four years had passed without her thinking of him. Had he forgotten her?
She set her jaw and tilted her chin. Well, if he had, then maybe he needed a reminder...
“Rebecca?”
Emma’s voice drew Rebecca from her ruminations. She realized her sister and grandmother were both watching her with curious expressions.
Emma smiled. “Are you going to call the men in?”
“Oh! Yes. I will.”
Rebecca turned toward the door, a plan—devious to be sure—already forming in her mind.
He touched her heart as no other man ever had…Would she be willing to wait for him?
Summer, 1865—In the months just after the end of the Civil War, old ways of life are changing in the South. At a plantation in North Carolina, three young women are determined to leave everything behind for an unknown future without an evil uncle or cousin.
But Beth Jornigan, her sister, Joanie, and their friend Trella encounter trouble from the very start. A fire racing through dry cotton fields almost ends their journey before it has a chance to begin. Fortunately, soldiers on their way home rescue them just in time. Only these brave young men don’t want the trouble that lovely, defenseless women will surely bring. They are more than ready to do nothing but put the war behind them, eat fresh-baked pie, and drink sweet tea surrounded again by their families.
And yet both the men and women discover that God sometimes has other plans than the ones we hold dear, and embracing those plans just may be an adventure and a chance for all of their dreams to come true.
The intersecting lives and tales of these engaging characters and those they meet along the way create an uplifting story of tested faith, growing seeds of love, and the challenge and gift of believing in God’s promise of a future and a hope.
What are you going to do, McAllister? Put your life on hold forever and let a woman like Ragan slip through your fingers so you can pursue scum like Bledso?
Johnny knew Bledso wasn’t worth a hair on Ragan’s head. Why couldn’t he let it go and just get on with his life?
Convicted of a bank robbery he didn’t commit, drifter Johnny McAllister is sentenced to do time in a rehabilitation program in the home of Judge Proctor McMann, a gentle, wise soul who believes in second chances.
Johnny’s aim is to be a model prisoner. He hopes to be released early to return to his life’s mission: to find and kill Dirk Bledso, the man who wiped out his family 16 years before. Johnny has planned for everything…except his encounter with Ragan Ramsey, the judge’s beautiful and kind housekeeper, and his involvement with the generous folks of Barren Flats.
Can this would-be outlaw let go of his hate and anger and embrace something better—something he can’t yet see?
A tender romance that shows how even the hard law of the West doesn’t stand a chance when God’s mercy, warm friendship, and true love come to reside in a lonely man’s heart.
The corner of Cade’s eye caught a glimpse of a redheaded woman entering the drugstore. His quickening heartbeat caught him off guard. For a moment he thought it was Zoe. It wasn’t. He settled back in the saddle, grinning. Zoe Bradshaw. Now there was a woman not easily forgotten
.