Along the Cane River: Books 1-5 in the Inspirational Cane River Romance Series

by Mary Jane Hathaway

  •2 medium cloves garlic, peeled and minced

  •1 large green bell pepper, chopped

  •2 celery stalks, diced (some folks also don’t like celery but I’ve tried it without and it was just not the same, so I say unless you’re allergic or really hate celery, give it a chance)

  •4 tbsp fresh Italian parsley, minced

  •1 cup ham, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

  •1 cup diced chicken breast

  •2 large bay leaves

  •1 tsp cayenne pepper

  •2 cans diced tomatoes, or three medium tomatoes, fresh, diced

  •1 small can tomato sauce

  •3/4 cup rice, uncooked (once I made this with wild rice and it was amazing! Just a thought, in case you have some on hand and want to add a little extra texture to your jambalaya)

  •2 lbs medium shrimp, peeled, deveined and chopped

  Add oil to a large saucepan (I use a cast iron pan). Over medium heat, sauté onion, garlic, bell pepper and celery until onion until tender. Add ham, chicken, bay leaf, parsley and cayenne pepper. Cook for about seven minutes, stirring to keep it from sticking or burning to the pan. Add undrained tomatoes, tomato sauce, and 1 ½ cups cold water. (If you use the wild rice, increase the water to 1 ¾.) Gently simmer for about 6 minutes, uncovered, stirring every now and then. Add the rice and stir. Let it come to a boil. Lower the heat and put on the lid, letting it simmer for about 40 minutes or until the rice is soft. Add the shrimp and let it cook uncovered for about 3-4 minutes. Take out the bay leaves. You can add some more cayenne or pepper and salt at the point. This is a good time to separate the dishes if you have younger people in the family. My younger kids aren’t thrilled about spicy foods, but my older two and my husband think that the spicier it is, the better!

  Enjoy!

  Low Country Boil

  When Gideon decides he needs help getting to know Henry, he asks Father Tom for help. A low country boil in the backyard on a warm summer night is just the thing to break down those barriers and resolve misunderstandings, right? Now, the key to a good country boil recipe is always in the spices. Old Bay is a favorite, and also Zatarain’s Crawfish and Crab Boil. But if you live in a state or rural area where that sort of thing just doesn’t show up on the grocery store shelves, you can always make your own. An easy homemade version is below the directions!

  Ingredients:

  2 ½ pounds small red potatoes, quartered

  2 ½ pounds kielbasa sausage

  5 ears of fresh corn on the cob, chopped into pieces

  3lbs shrimp, with shells

  If you’re using the home made seasoning mix, add everything together and save out 1 1/2 teaspoons to use later. Add the seasoning to about nine cups of boiling water.

  Add the potatoes first. Cook them for about seven minutes or until just starting to get soft when pierced with a fork. Add sausage and let it boil for five minutes. Add the corn and let it boil another five minutes. Add the shrimp last and boil for three or four minutes or until they’re opaque. Drain off the liquid and sprinkled the last teaspoon of seasoning on top. Enjoy!!

  Homemade seasoning:

  5 dried , crumbled by leaves

  2 teaspoons dried mustard powder

  2 teaspoons black pepper

  1 teaspoon nutmeg

  1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

  1 1/2 teaspoons salt

  1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

  3/4 teaspoon red pepper (I sometimes use ½ teaspoon if I know the guests don’t like a lot of spice)

  3 1/2 teaspoons celery salt

  1 1/2 teaspoons paprika

  Only Through Love

  by

  Mary Jane Hathaway

  All rights reserved. © 2014 by Gumbo Books and Mary Jane Hathaway.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  The title of this book comes from the Sara Teasdale poem called Child, Child. I’ve added the full poem to the end of the book under Novels, Illustrators, Poets and Poetry That Play a Role in This Book.

  All characters in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination. www.virginiacarmichael.blogspot.com

  There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 1 John 4:18 (NIV)

  This book is dedicated to those who have ever loved too much. May you always have a soft heart. The world needs you.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  OTHER TITLES

  OTHER TITLES

  Acknowledgements

  Dear reader,

  Novels, illustrators, poetry, and poets which play a role in this story:

  BIOGRAPHY

  Louisiana Creole glossary

  Recipes

  Chapter One

  Heart, we will forget him!

  You and I, tonight!

  You may forget the warmth he gave,

  I will forget the light.

  ― Dickinson

  Charlie Soule glanced up from her paperback and squinted into the bright August sunlight. By the Book was unusually quiet for a Wednesday. She hadn’t noticed the hours slipping by until the late afternoon sun hit the front desk like a floodlight. On her right, a large gray cat stretched from tail to nose, the papers under his paws shifting with a whisper. Morphing into an upright position, he fixed her with a sleepy look. Van Winkle had been a resident of the old bookstore for as long as Charlie had been around. He was like a paperweight, but less mobile.

  “If you don’t like the sun, you should sleep elsewhere.” She was wasting her breath since Van Winkle was as much as part of the desk as the cash register. Setting down Mary Shelley’s original Frankenstein, Charlie crossed the gleaming checkerboard foyer and pulled the blinds down as quietly as possible. As she came back around the desk, she paused to look into the playpen set up between the two antique office chairs. Sprawled on a light cotton blanket, arms outstretched as if ready to embrace the world, was three-month-old Aurora Olivier. Charlie leaned down, admiring how the baby’s dark curls were touched with highlights, how her long lashes curled against her flushed cheeks, and how her perfect mouth was open just enough for the softest breath to pass as she slept. She was wearing little pink shorts and a tiny white T-shirt that read “The Book Was Better”. Her temples were damp with sweat, but the temperature in the hundred year old building inched downward now that the room was cast into darkness. Charlie inhaled, wondering why Aurora always carried the sweet scent of strawberries.

  “Sedgwick said babies are alike as biscuits in a pan,” Alice said from somewhere behind her.

  “I didn’t hear you come in.” Charlie straightened up and wondered how creepy she’d looked, hovering over Alice’s tiny baby.

  “I came through the back door.” She tenderly ran her fingers through Aurora’s fine dark hair, soft as corn silk. “I have to assume Sedgwick didn’t know many babies personally. They all look so different to me. And of course my own baby is the most beautiful of all.” She looked up. “Don’t correct me if I’m wrong.”

  “She certainly smells like a biscuit,” Charlie said. “I mean, she smells real good. Like something delicious.”

  Alice cocked her head and smiled. “She does have the sweetest breath, I do believe. Now, I hate to do it, but I’d better wake her up or her schedule will be all cattywampus. I’ve got that new tenant and even though the walls are thick, I wouldn’t want him to hear her up at all hours.”

  Charlie nodded. Alice and Paul lived above By the Book, even though Paul had been
making noises about buying a big farmhouse outside of town. He said he wanted somewhere on the river where he could teach Aurora to fish, which always made Charlie imagine the little baby wearing infant-sized waders and a hat decorated in lures. The apartment next door had been left empty after the last tenant, the pretty historian Henry Byrne, had married Gideon Becket and moved to his place out by Lac Terre Noir. Last Christmas Charlie felt as if everyone she knew had paired up, like the animals before the flood, and she was going to be left behind. Now the thought didn’t bother her a bit. It would be such a relief to be left alone with her bruised heart and broken spirit.

  “You should meet him,” Alice said, “before you head back to school.”

  “Who?” For a moment, she thought Alice said “meet with him” and her heat skipped a beat.

  “Austin, the man renting my apartment. The new tenant.” She shot Charlie a worried look. “Are you okay?”

  “Sure am.” Charlie turned to shuffle a few papers on the desk, her heart still beating hard. She’d been avoiding Alice’s husband, Paul, all summer. Tell her now. It was nearly September. She didn’t know why she was so afraid, since she and Alice were good friends, maybe best friends. Charlie had started working in By the Book when she was just a teenager, and she’d come back to work in the little antique bookstore every summer and holiday throughout her college years. Now she was headed into her last year, the home stretch, the final push to getting her degree. Or she should have been.

  “He graduated from University of Louisiana and works down at the Juvenile Justice Center as one of their counselors. Cora Jeunesse says everyone loves him. The kids respond to him when they won’t listen to anyone else. It’s like he always knows exactly what to say.”

  Charlie didn’t respond. Once upon a time she’d given her heart to someone like that.

  Alice leaned over and ever-so-gently lifted Aurora into her arms. The baby was as limp as a cooked strand of spaghetti for a moment then started to stretch. “When he moved in, he mentioned how glad he was that the apartment was wired for cable internet because he plays Ultimate Voyager several hours a day. You can imagine how happy Paul was to hear that.”

  Charlie’s stomach flipped over. Paul created Ultimate Voyager, one of the biggest multi-player online games, and Charlie used to be completely dedicated to the game herself, besides being Paul’s biggest fan. She’d spent nearly five years with the same character and nearly four years with her guild. That little group had been like her family and she’d thought those friendships were rock solid. All that was gone and just hearing about the game made her sick to her stomach.

  Aurora scrunched up her face and made unhappy sounds. Alice rubbed her back in gentle circles, saying, “He really reminds me so much of you. Smart, young, passionate, loves technology and gaming, cares about people.”

  “Right. I’m sure he’s very nice.” She heard the flatness in her own voice and forced a smile. She didn’t feel smart, or young, and definitely didn’t care all that much about people. She didn’t care all that much about anything. She couldn’t afford to now.

  “And when he moved in, he brought in one suitcase full of clothes and about fourteen boxes of books. I think he chose the apartment just for all the built-in book cases.”

  Charlie caught herself before she could ask if Alice had seen what kind of books he’d brought. Meeting another book nerd used to give her happy bunny feels but not anymore. “Alice, I wanted to ask you something.”

  “Of course.” She sat down and maneuvered Aurora into the crook of her arm with a practiced motion. “Let me change Aurora and I’ll feed her while we talk. She’s so sweaty. Can you pass me the diaper bag?”

  Reaching for the little black bag, Charlie wondered if Alice worried over Aurora. Probably not at this age. Alice probably saw her future as cocooned in love and safety and shot through with possibility like ribbons of gold in rock. But Charlie couldn’t help imagining the very worst for the little girl. Aurora had been born into a world that seemed so full of promise, but was like sunlight shimmering on the surface of a deep lake. Women didn’t get to live up near the top, where the water was warm and the sky curved like a mother’s arm.

  Alice quickly stripped the baby down and changed her diaper. “Hm. She goes through so many clothes. I thought people had sent us more clothes than we could possibly need but if she changes her outfit five times before noon, then we have just about enough. Or I could do laundry all day instead of run a bookstore.”

  “You could always put a washer downstairs in one of the back rooms.”

  Alice gave her a look of horror. “I thought you were going to suggest I pay someone else to do the laundry. I’m definitely not moving out books to make way for the washer.”

  She smiled. “Yeah. You’re right. Makes no sense.” For Alice, money was no option. She was happy for her. At the same time, she could see how it had changed the way she approached life.

  Alice gently dressed Aurora in a tiny red capris and a shirt that said “I Read Past My Bedtime”. Grabbing a little blanket, she settled into a chair. Charlie stared at the ornate cast iron lights as Alice helped the baby latch on. She wasn’t a prude but the nursing still seemed weird to her. It was so… personal. She’d never noticed babies nursing before. Now they seemed to be everywhere. It wasn’t really the nursing itself that bothered her, it was more the crushingly tender look Alice got in her eyes, the one that said almost everything she loved in the world was right there in her arms.

  “Mrs. Gaskell, I can’t hold you right now.” Alice wiggled her foot in the long haired tabby cat’s direction. “And you two, don’t you have somewhere to be?” Mr. Rochester, looking as rough and scarred as ever, took up a position near the desk, and Jane Eyre gracefully settled herself beside him.

  Charlie glanced around and let out a snort of laughter. Darcy, the large black cat who lived high up on the top of the ranges, was perched at the end of the poetry section and seemed to be coldly observing the situation. Miss Elizabeth trotted toward the desk, eyes bright and mischievous as usual. Mrs. Bennet, a vocal and persnickety Siamese was close behind. “You ever get the feeling they’re critiquing your mothering?”

  “All the time. I think if I let Aurora wait another five minutes, we might have a riot on our hands.” After a few seconds, Alice relaxed in the chair, the baby tucked against her. Her eyes closed for a moment and Charlie noticed the dark circles underneath. Alice never complained about being tired but she must wish she was taking a rest right alongside Aurora. “Now, what was it you wanted to ask?”

  Charlie paused and ran a hand over her hair, surprised again when she felt the silky strands end near her jaw. Having long hair had been perfect for cosplaying the dragon queen, and when she switched from bleached blonde to cotton candy pink last year, it seemed to match everything she wore, right down to all her gamer T-shirts. Now she didn’t care what she looked like, and for simplicity’s sake had cut it off, letting the color slowly leach away until it looked like yet another stupid mistake she regretted making. It had reverted to the same dark brown in all her baby pictures, but she didn’t remember herself that way, and every time she looked in the mirror, it felt like a shock.

  Ask her now. “I know you don’t really need that much help around here, but I was wondering if you had any hours extra available this Fall.”

  “Before you leave? Of course. You’re welcome to put in as many hours as you want all the way until the last day. And come back during Christmas break.” Alice nodded for emphasis. “You’re always welcome here, Charlie. You know this store as well as I do and you know the fantasy section much better. Bix does what he can, but with his eyesight, he just can’t help the customers like you can.” She leaned forward a little. “I really appreciate you. Maybe I don’t say that enough, but I do. You’ve been my right hand girl… woman… for years and years. Way back when I was struggling to keep this place afloat, you and Bix worked hard to bring in new customers and I’ll never forget it.”


  Way back when. Charlie looked down at her battered Converse. Before Alice married Paul, Alice had worried about money. Charlie hadn’t worried about money because Charlie’s parents had put aside thousands every year into a college account, planning for the day that their only child would go off to college. While Alice fretted about keeping the bookstore afloat, Charlie had acted like the selfish teen that she was and worried about reaching the next level in Ultimate Voyager. Now Alice never had to count her pennies again and Charlie was scared to death when she thought more than a few weeks ahead.

  “I meant this Fall. You know, before Christmas.”

  “Wait. You want to stay here in Natchitoches instead of going back for your senior year?”

  “Right. And it doesn’t matter how many hours you can give me. I don’t expect to work full time. I know Bix does a lot around here, too.” The elderly man was legally blind but he did a lot of welcoming customers and straightening the shelves. The three of them had been there from the beginning. Alice, Bix, and Charlie. So much had changed in the last two years. She never thought she’d want to go back to high school, back to when she was juggling a part time job and her online life.

  Alice switched to Creole, her voice soft. “Sha, why would you want to do that?”

  She lifted one shoulder and let it drop. Whenever Alice spoke to her in Creole, Charlie answered in English. It was the way it had always been. In Louisiana, a quarter of a million people spoke some form of Cajun or Creole French but the practice was fading away.

  Alice was young, but she acted like someone from her grandparents’ generation, stuck to the traditions of the Cane River people. Charlie had gone along with Alice’s funny projects and plans, but had always felt like being Creole set her apart in a way she didn’t want or need. Today she spoke it right back, hoping that she could head off all Alice’s questions.

  “Just don’t feel like going back.”