A Widow's Hope

by Vannetta Chapman

  “Did she believe that?”

  “I’m not sure. She could have been teasing. On the other hand...maybe she was serious. I only know that I’ve been seeing red birds when I needed a nudge in the right direction lately.”

  “And you needed to see one now?”

  They were leaning against the pasture fence, their arms crossed on the wooden beam, watching the mare. Jacob glanced sideways at her, a crooked smile pulling at his mouth. “Ya, I did.”

  * * *

  Jacob knew now was the time.

  He’d known it in the workshop when Micah had told him to go and see Hannah, to ask her, to face his future.

  He’d known it when he’d seen Hannah waiting on the porch.

  And he’d known it when the red bird had alighted on the fence beside them.

  Still, it took courage to ask a girl to marry you, to spend her life with you.

  His heart was hammering against his chest, and every time he glanced at Hannah his palms began to sweat. He was acting like a youngie, like the lovesick pup that Micah had mentioned. That image brought him to his senses. He wasn’t either of those things. He was a man in love, and it was past time to find out if Hannah felt the same way.

  He turned to her, clasped her hands in his own and said, “I need to ask you something.”

  “You do?”

  “I care about you, Hannah.”

  “And I care about you.”

  “I care about you and Matthew.”

  “He adores you.” Her voice was lower, huskier, and he thought he saw tears sparkling in her eyes. He prayed they were happy tears.

  He’d lived in the past for so long that he felt as if his feet were encased in cement, his tongue was tied and his brain had stopped working completely. Somehow he needed to break free from that past.

  Taking a deep breath, he squeezed Hannah’s hands and plunged into his future. “Will you marry me?”

  “Wow.”

  “Wow yes or wow no?”

  “I...I wasn’t expecting that.”

  A pretty blush worked its way up her neck. Jacob had the absurd idea that he might be dreaming this entire thing, that he might wake up and find the lovely woman standing beside him, looking up at him with those beautiful brown eyes, was a figment of his imagination.

  “I’m surprised is all.”

  “Good surprised or bad surprised?” Before she could answer, he rushed on. “I know that I’m not a perfect man, and I would understand if you said no because living with me, with a man like me—”

  “Do you love me?”

  He’d been staring at their hands but now he jerked his head up, reached out and touched her cheek. “Yes, Hannah. I love you, and I love Matthew, and it would be an honor to be your husband and his father.”

  “We love you too.”

  “You do?”

  “Ya. Didn’t you know?”

  “I’d hoped.”

  He pulled her to him then, relief flooding through his soul. “You love me, Hannah?”

  “Yes.” She laughed and pulled back, gazed up into his eyes. “You’re a gut man, Jacob, and a gut friend. I wasn’t sure...wasn’t sure that you’d want your life to be complicated so.”

  “Everyone’s life is complicated, even Plain folks’.”

  “Matthew’s crisis has passed, for now, but there will be others.”

  “True of any family.”

  “It won’t be easy.”

  “I don’t expect it to be.”

  “But you’re sure?”

  “Ya. Are you sure, Hannah?” He took her hand and raised it to his cheek, to his scars, held it there. “These won’t bother you?”

  “We all have scars. Yours are simply on the outside.”

  He stepped closer, kissed her softly once and then again, pulled her into his arms. They stood there, with the fall breeze dropping even more leaves around them and Jacob thought that he could feel Hannah’s heart beating against his.

  When she finally stepped back, still smiling, he asked, “Who do you want to tell first?”

  “Matthew. Let’s go and tell Matthew.”

  * * * * *

  If you loved this story, be sure to pick up

  these other tales of Amish life and love:

  HIS NEW AMISH FAMILY by Patricia Davids

  HER FORGIVING AMISH HEART by Rebecca Kertz

  THE AMISH SUITOR by Jo Ann Brown

  THE WEDDING QUILT BRIDE by Marta Perry

  THEIR AMISH REUNION by Lenora Worth

  Available now from Love Inspired!

  Find more great reads at www.LoveInspired.com

  Keep reading for an excerpt from HER COWBOY REUNION by Ruth Logan Herne.

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  Dear Reader,

  Sometimes life’s burdens can seem terribly heavy, and yet we have the assurance that all things work together for the good of those that love God. He has wonderful things planned for us—the very best things—and He loves us more than we can begin to imagine.

  Hannah is a young mother who had envisioned a very different future for herself—she would have a houseful of children, relish the steady and faithful love of her husband, and live a plain and simple life. But even Amish lives are touched by tragedy. When she returns home, she is reminded of the comfort of family, and she also remeets Jacob. God knows Hannah’s hurts, and He is planning a future for her all along.

  Jacob has endured his own tragedies, and yet to some degree he has come to terms with his solitary existence. But he doesn’t see himself as God sees him—as a beautiful creation. He doesn’t believe anyone would want to spend their life with him. Then one day he shows up to build a playhouse and finds his future waiting for him.

  I hope you enjoyed reading A Widow’s Hope. I would love to hear from you. Feel free to email me at vannettachapman@gmail.com.

  Together may we “always give thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:20).

  Blessings,

  Vannetta

  We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Love Inspired story.

  You believe hearts can heal. Love Inspired stories show that faith, forgiveness and hope have the power to lift spirits and change lives—always.

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  Her Cowboy Reunion

  by Ruth Logan Herne

  Chapter One

  This is the chance you’ve been waiting for. Hoping for. Praying for. Don’t blow it.

  Lizzie Fitzgerald climbed out of an SUV more suited to her rich past than her impoverished present.

  Her late uncle’s Western Idaho ranch splayed around her like an old-fashioned wagon wheel, spreading wide from the farmhouse hub. Straight south lay sheep barns forming a
huge letter T. The sound of sheep and dogs rose up from beyond the barns where woolly creatures dotted rolling fields like white sprinkles on a kelly green cake.

  On her left the long, curving graveled drive wound past a copse of newly leafed trees to the two-lane country road above. Behind her was a classic Western home. Two stories, wrapped in honey-brown cedar and a porch that extended across the front and down both sides. Two swings and a variety of rockers decked the porch.

  “No doubt I will spend my share of time on that porch as the weather warms,” said Corrie as she stepped from the other side of the car. “What a pretty place this is, Lizzie-Beth! But I can see your attention is drawn to what brought us here.” She dipped her chin toward Lizzie’s right. “Your uncle’s passing and his love for horses. A family trait. Or downfall,” she added softly.

  “It won’t be this time.” Lizzie strode toward the freshly built stables. “Not with someone willing to put in the effort. It wasn’t horses that brought down Claremorris,” she reminded Corrie, the stout African American woman who had raised Lizzie and her two sisters at the stately Kentucky horse farm. “It was greed and dishonesty. This will be different, Corrie. You’ll see.”

  “I’ll pray it different, right beside you,” Corrie declared. “Then we’ll see, Sugar. You explore your new place. I’m going to see if there’s a restroom close by.”

  Lizzie walked toward the classic U-shaped stable configuration while Corrie disappeared into the house. Two equine wings stretched from opposite ends of the central barn. A row of stable doors faced the groomed square of grass that was surrounded by a hoof-friendly walking area. Six windows lined the face of the central barn, facing the equine courtyard. Curtains in the upper windows suggested living quarters, much like they’d had in their Kentucky stable. The whole concept was modeled after the Celtic horse farms her great-grandparents had known in Ireland. Uncle Sean might not have liked the newspaper publishing business that made the family’s fortune, but he clearly appreciated their Irish roots.

  A horse nickered from its stall. Another answered softly.

  Then quiet stretched as if wondering about her. Testing her.

  Footsteps approached across the gravel. She turned.

  A cowboy strode her way, looking just as classic as the ranch around him. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Narrow-hipped. And...familiar. As if—

  Lizzie pushed that thought aside. She’d loved a cowboy once, with all the sweet intensity of first love, but that was a dozen years and a lot of heartache past. And yet—

  The cowboy drew closer.

  He raised his head and looked at her, as if throwing down a challenge. And she knew why.

  Heath Caufield. Her first love, with his coal-black hair and gray-blue eyes. Eyes that seemed to see right through her and found her wanting.

  Her heart went slow, then sped up.

  Adrenaline buzzed through her. She stared at him, and he stared right back. Then he said two simple words. “You came.”

  “You’re here.”

  “I live here.”

  “You worked for my uncle?” None of this made any sense. Her uncle Sean hadn’t had contact with Lizzie’s lying, scheming father in decades. He’d purposely gone off on his own after serving in the Marines, as far from the Fitzgerald News Company as he could get. He’d spurned the newspaper empire, took his inheritance from Grandpa Ralph and gone west. And that was all she knew because that was all Corrie had ever told her. So how’d he hire Heath?

  “I’ve been here twelve years. Been manager for three.”

  She flushed.

  He didn’t seem to notice her higher color. Or he simply ignored it. “I came here the same time you went off to Yale to get your fancy degree in journalism like your daddy and grandpa. How’s that working out for you, by the way?”

  He looked mad and sounded madder, as if the demise of her family business, horse farm and estate was somehow her fault. It wasn’t, and she didn’t owe Heath any explanations. In her book, it was the other way around, but she’d put the past behind her years ago. She had to. He’d be wise to do the same. “Journalism with an MBA on the side. From Wharton. And enough expertise with horses and business to handle this, I expect.”

  Her words and Ivy League degrees didn’t seem to impress him, but she wasn’t here to impress anyone. She was here to do a job, a job assigned to her by her dying uncle. If she and her sisters put in a year working the equine side of Pine Ridge Ranch and brought it out of the red and into the black, his estate would be split four ways, according to the lawyer’s formal letter. Her, her two sisters, and the current farm manager, who appeared to be Heath Caufield.

  His look went from her to the stunning barn behind her, then back. “Twenty-eight horses, with eight of them bred to championship lines. And you show up on your own. Where are Charlotte and Melonie?”

  His attitude caused a hint of anger to fire up inside her. Should she snap back?

  No. There was nothing to be achieved in that. She kept her face and her voice even. “They’ll be along. They had things to finish up. And while they’ll be living here, don’t expect them to take on major horse work. Char just finished her veterinary degree and Melonie doesn’t do well in a barn.”

  “She’ll adjust.”

  The lick of anger burned a little brighter. “I believe Uncle Sean’s will said that Charlotte, Melonie and I had to live here for at least a year to earn our bequests. And that we needed to focus on getting the horse breeding business up and running or sell it off. Correct?”

  He held her gaze with hard eyes and nodded. Slowly.

  “Trust us to disburse the jobs as we see fit. They’ll do their share, but make no mistake about it, Heath.” She folded her arms and braced her legs because if there was one thing she was sure about, it was her ability to run horse from every aspect of the business. “I’ll be the one putting in the time in this stable. With whatever help you have available.”

  “Help’s tight at the moment. We’ve got one last herd of sheep going into the hills since the government reneged on our grazing rights, and that leaves us short down here. For the next six weeks at least.”

  “Then we’ll have to figure things out,” she told him. “Because the girls won’t be here for a few weeks, either.” She didn’t tell him why she was available at a moment’s notice, how the illustrious corporation her great-grandfather began had fired her as soon as the Feds indicted her father on multiple charges of embezzlement and money laundering. No publisher in today’s struggling print economy wanted their name connected to Tim Fitzgerald’s misdeeds. She was guilty by association. End of story.

  Not out here. Not on this ranch. Or so she’d thought until she came face-to-face with Heath again. Who’d have thought her road less traveled would lead to this?

  Not her. But that was okay because she’d grown up since then, and this ranch, those beautiful horses...

  This job was made for her. She knew it. She was pretty sure Heath knew it, too. And if they both stayed calm, cool and collected, maybe they could make it work. As long as they both stayed on their own side of the ranch.

  * * *

  She’d come.

  Heath hadn’t wanted her to. He’d have been fine leaving the past in the past, but now it rose up to meet him, and all because his friend and mentor’s life had been cut short...with a herd of pricey horses to comb, curry, exercise and tend. And not one lick of time to do it.

  Sean’s cancer did this. He’d invested a crazy amount of money to begin a horse breeding enterprise, the kind of horses that required substantial bankroll, then took their own sweet time about paying it back.

  Beautiful horse flesh, the kind that ranchers and rodeo riders alike loved. With Sean’s death, they had no one to oversee the million-dollar industry. No one except Lizzie and her sisters, straight off a pretentious Southern horse farm that had been seized by the government.
Sean had called it God’s timing.

  Heath considered it more like cruel fate. Either way, she was here, and if he was honest with himself, she was even more beautiful than she’d been a dozen years before. Long chestnut-toned hair, pulled back. Cinnamon eyes that almost matched the hair, and skin as fair and freckled as he remembered.

  “Heath Caufield.”

  He turned swiftly toward an old, friendly voice. “Corrie?”

  She hugged him, laughed, then hugged him again as Lizzie began to retrieve bags from their vehicle.

  “You came all the way up here? I can’t believe this.”

  “Did you think I’d send any one of my babies on alone?” She stared at him as if aghast. “Not on your life! My girls will begin this new adventure with me by their sides. Caring for horses does not come easy and it’s a night-and-day enterprise. But that’s something you already know.”

  He sure did. He’d spent seven years working their grandfather’s horse farm before he’d been banished.

  Corrie offered him a frank look, a look that made him wonder how much she knew. And then it was gone. “Do you expect there’s room in the kitchen for one more? I don’t want to step on any toes.”

  “There aren’t any paid positions open right now, Corrie.” He didn’t want to say money was tight on a ranch valued in the millions of dollars. But it was.

  She shrugged. “I put some money by over the years, and followed some investing advice. Money’s not what I’m after. A roof over our heads, and food to eat—that’s not a bad day, is it? I’m not handy with horses, but I’d like to learn my way around sheep. Such docile creatures. And the lambs, so small, like a painting from the Good Book.” She indicated the size of a newborn lamb with her hands. “And of course, I am good in the garden. Always was, and fresh-grown food is a blessing.” She gave him a quiet scan. “You look good, Heath. Older. And wiser.”

  “Smarter, for sure.” He didn’t look at Liz. He didn’t have to look at Liz to remember the strength and urgency of young love. How could one forget the unforgettable? He couldn’t, but a smart man put it all in perspective. “Steadier.”