Jesse couldn’t very well say that he would. “I’ll keep that in mind, but so far no one’s perfect.”
Roland burst out laughing. “If you’re looking for perfection, you’ll never find it. We’re all imperfect. That’s what makes life interesting. It’s not about meeting a set of criteria, it’s about finding someone who makes you laugh, who brings joy and excitement to every day. It’s about a woman so dear that the thought of never seeing her again is intolerable. Once you’ve found that, you’ll know she’s the one.”
His advice rolled around in Jesse’s mind all weekend. Louise was all that and more. The thought of leaving her behind was the worst part about taking the South Manitou lighthouse keeper position, but he’d assumed that feeling would wane in time. What if he was wrong?
He watched her during Christmas service. She sang with all her heart and gave extra attention to the Evanses’ niece. Seeing her with the little girl pierced his heart. She would make such a good mother. She was patient and gentle and kind. Love flowed out of her, and she didn’t even realize it. How bitter it must be to know she couldn’t have children.
As Mr. Calloway read the Scripture that told the story of Elizabeth, who had been considered barren but conceived late in life, he wished such things could happen these days.
Oh ye of little faith.
The words resounded in his head. But he did have faith. That story was from long ago. The impossible had happened in order to fulfill God’s plan. It didn’t happen today.
“...behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream,” Mr. Calloway was reading from the gospel of Matthew.
Jesse started. He’d been lost in his thoughts instead of paying attention.
“Saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife...”
Jesse did not hear the rest of the reading, for in that moment, he understood exactly what Joseph had been thinking. His wife would give birth, but not to Joseph’s son. In the dream, God told him to accept the child as his own. To adopt.
Joseph had “adopted” Jesus. That was God’s plan.
Jesse sat stunned. Joseph had obeyed God. Would he?
Louise got up and walked to the back of the church with the Evans girl. That’s when Jesse realized that all the children had moved there, but he had no idea why. The nativity play had taken place yesterday. Were they planning to sing?
“Now we’ll sing ‘Joy to the World,’” Mr. Calloway announced.
The hymn began, and something lifted from Jesse’s heart. The agonies of the past didn’t disappear, but they were somehow overshadowed by a peace and, yes, joy.
When the song ended, a riotous sound drew every head to the children, who were blowing their whistles with all their might. Laughter bubbled to many lips, including Jesse’s. Then he saw Louise, hands clasped at her throat, beaming at the children.
In that moment he knew. As Roland had said he would, Jesse knew.
* * *
The whistles were ear-piercing, but Louise couldn’t help herself. She laughed and then clapped. So did many others, for these children who had lost so much were grinning and poking each other with their elbows and standing so tall and proud.
Louise brushed away a tear. Surely this was the best Christmas ever. Not for lavish feasts or special gifts or family reunions. No, this year she felt in her heart the babe in a stable, God come to earth not with great splendor and riches but in the humblest way. A tiny baby. A dirty stable. No relatives gazing on. Yet the skies were filled with great joy, just as this small church was filled with joy. The Christ had come!
For a moment, the displaced forgot their loss. Parents hugged children, tears in their eyes.
The poor forgot their empty larder. A feast pulled together from everyone’s stores awaited in the hotel dining room. Sawyer hugged Fiona and Mary Clare, doubtless eager to begin.
The orphans forgot their lack of family. Dinah and Linore. Pearl and Amanda. Some had made new families. Others found a family in this tiny community.
So had Louise. God might not grant her a family of her own, but the entire town had embraced her. She could love the young ladies she taught and the children of dear friends. It was enough.
That lightened her heart. So much so that she didn’t notice Jesse approach until he spoke.
“I’ve never seen anyone more lovely.”
The words startled her. Surely he could not mean her. But he did. He looked only at her. No other woman stood near except the mothers of the children who had blown their whistles.
She swallowed and averted her gaze. “Thank you for the whistles.”
His gaze never wavered.
“I’ve made a terrible mistake,” he said, “and hurt you in the process.”
She held her breath and just as quickly let it out. He was simply apologizing.
“I accept your apology.” She started to move away before he raised the old obstacle between them again.
He stopped her with a light touch on her arm. “Please hear me out. I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I accept it. You have been kind and considerate and patient from the start. I have, well, I’ve been stuck in foolish thought and behavior. You were right, you see.”
“I was?” She hazarded a glance and saw open honesty in his expression.
He nodded. “We can only do our best and leave the rest to God.”
Her heart skipped a beat, but she tried to calm herself. “I learned that from a dear, old friend, now deceased.”
“She—or he—was wise.”
“Yes, she was, and one of my few friends in New York.”
Many of the families had already left the church. Only a few people remained: the Calloways, Pearl and Roland, Amanda Decker and Fiona, who looked like she wanted to ask her something.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said.
“Thank you.” She nodded toward the group waiting near the door. “Perhaps we should leave.” To push home the point, she began to walk in that direction.
Again he stopped her. “Please give me a moment.”
Louise glanced at her friends, who all nodded their approval. Though they stood across the room, Louise felt as if she was a specimen beneath a looking glass.
Jesse took a deep breath, his expression solemn. “I botched this the last time. This time I want you to know there are no restrictions and no criteria to be met. Louise Smythe, I can’t imagine living one day without you. I love everything about you. Would you do me the great honor of—”
This time she stopped him with a single raised finger.
Though her heart thumped wildly, Louise could not let him say what she expected he was trying to say without telling him everything. There would be no secrets and nothing withheld this time. “You need to know that I do not want to leave Singapore.”
He started. “You don’t?”
“It has become my home. These families are my family. The children are my children. I can’t go to a barren island.”
He nodded solemnly, and she steeled herself for his departure. Instead, he took her small hands in his large ones. “Neither can I.”
She stared. “You can’t?”
“No. I didn’t know it until now, but ambition isn’t everything in life. I will stay as long as the Lighthouse Service lets me.”
Now her pulse was really accelerating.
“And the reason why,” he continued, “is because of you. I could live anywhere if you were there. Without you, it’s just another place. This is home. I love you, Louise Smythe.” He dropped to one knee. “I love you and would be the happiest man on earth if you would consent to become my wife.”
“But the children you wanted?”
“We can adopt.”
Had she just heard correctly? He hadn’t said it with absolut
e certainty, but he had said it. Tears filled her eyes.
“When I think of how much Dinah and Linore wanted a real family, I desperately want to take a child into my heart.”
“Linore and Dinah are orphans?”
“And Pearl and Amanda.”
He looked stunned. “But they’re nothing like...” He shook his head. “Apparently my father wasn’t quite accurate.”
Louise had no idea what he meant, but she did see the tension slip from him.
“Yes, we can adopt,” he said with a great deal more joy. “I love you, Louise, and can’t think of anything I’d rather do than spend the rest of my life with you and the children God brings into our lives. We can adopt. In fact, let’s do it right away.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something, Mr. Hammond?”
He sobered. “You don’t accept?”
How could she refuse that boyish disappointment. “I do. Yes, I do.”
Then he broke into a genuine smile, one broader than she’d ever seen. It changed his appearance from pensive and weighty to one of pure joy, and her heart surged toward him. This was indeed the man she loved.
He stood, swept her into his arms and looked deep into her eyes. “There’s something else I’ve forgotten.” Then he kissed her, pure and yet filled with the promise of what was to come.
When the kiss ended, she gazed at her fiancé as if seeing him anew. She had no idea what had changed his mind, but she had no doubt of the change. Jesse Hammond was a new man, one looking into the future not back at the past. Freed of burden and filled with joy.
“Look who found the mistletoe,” cried Pearl.
Louise looked up and laughed. No doubt her friends had placed it there, and somehow she and Jesse had managed to stand directly beneath it. Her three friends all clapped. Then they surrounded her with embraces and congratulations.
“Just think,” Pearl said, “you will almost be a Christmas bride like us.”
A bride. Louise let that sink in. She looked to Jesse, and their gazes locked. This time she had made the right choice.
Epilogue
June 1873
Louise looked into her husband’s deep blue eyes. “Are you certain? There’s still time to change your mind.”
The spring breeze was gentle and the sun already high.
Jesse glanced wistfully at the lighthouse. “I am.”
She threaded her fingers through his, bolstered by the strength of his large fingers between her much smaller ones. “You will miss it.”
He shook his head. “I will miss Lake Michigan but not the job. Almost two years is long enough to be an assistant. I’m looking forward to being in charge.” His lips curved into a smile. Combined with the sandy blond curls framing his face, it transformed him into a boy.
His son would look just like him.
Lyle—such a grown-up name for a wee baby—fussed in her lap, shaking his tiny fists at her. She held him close and drank in the smell that she’d thought she’d never experience.
“Does he need changing?” asked the small voice of Grace Ellen, the eight-year-old girl from Chicago that they’d adopted at the end of their wedding trip a year ago last January.
Wonder of wonders, little Lyle was born ten months later.
“No,” Louise told her daughter, “I’m just drinking him in. Babies have a wonderful smell.”
Grace Ellen wrinkled her nose. “Not so wonderful to me.”
Louise chuckled. In time Grace Ellen would understand. For now it was enough to play at house and get her long brown hair plaited into braids each day with a bright red ribbon on each one.
“Ready to go?” Jesse asked. “It looks like the wagon train is set.”
They did look a lot like a westward-bound wagon train, but in their case, they were headed east to a location that Roland Decker had scouted eight months ago, as soon as it had become apparent to all that Singapore was dying. Upon his report of good, affordable land, each of the other families had purchased a plot. According to Roland’s description, a lake stood nearby and a river ran past the land, which had been cleared but not plowed. They would have a lot of work ahead, but the six families were eager to begin anew.
Grace Ellen squeezed between her and Jesse on the wagon seat. Though Louise would have loved the comfort of her husband’s strength for the journey, little Grace needed it more. She had barely become adjusted to Singapore before being uprooted again. The little girl squirmed on the seat.
“I never been on a wagon,” little Grace Ellen said.
It had been a long time since Louise had ridden in one. She recalled the journey being rough and very uncomfortable, but a wagon was the only way to get their belongings from Singapore to their new land.
Roland walked toward them. When he reached their wagon, he stopped, repeating the process he’d followed for the wagons in front of them.
“One final check to make sure everyone is ready,” Roland said.
Jesse nodded. “The sooner we begin, the sooner we’ll get there.”
Roland laughed. “You sound like my wife. Once I check with the VanderLeuvens and Sawyer, we’ll get going.”
The wagons were aligned in front of the boardinghouse and curved past the quiet sawmill. Roland and Pearl with their year-old boy took the lead, followed by Garrett and Amanda Decker with their four children. Then came Jesse and Louise, followed by the elder VanderLeuvens with their son and his family from Holland. Sawyer and Fiona and Mary Clare brought up the rear. Though heavy with her first child, Fiona insisted they take the all-important rear position. In fact, she had directed much of the packing—for everyone, not just her own family.
After Roland returned to his wagon, they began to roll forward ever so slowly. Mrs. Calloway joined her husband on the porch of the boardinghouse, though she had stated many a time that she couldn’t bear to watch them leave. Her wave triggered Louise’s tears.
Singapore had given so much to her and the other three ladies who had come here nearly three years ago in answer to a mail-order bride advertisement. Things hadn’t worked out the way they’d planned before their arrival, but each would leave with the family she had desired and a friendship that could not be broken. Louise would miss Singapore, but, as Roland had predicted, when the timber ran out, the town began to die. Already two buildings had been taken apart and relocated upstream in Saugatuck.
It was time to move on.
Jesse wiped a tear from her cheek with his finger. She leaned into his touch.
“Sad?” he asked.
“In a way, but excited also. Who knows what the future will bring?”
“Only God.”
She leaned close, encompassing Grace Ellen and Jesse in her embrace. “I do know that together we are strong, and we have the dearest friends imaginable joining us on this adventure.”
“That we do.” He kissed her ever so briefly as the wagon gathered momentum, and he had to keep his attention on the team of horses.
“Pearlman.” She tried out the name the group had decided upon for their new town, a name formed by combining Pearl and Amanda’s names. Though the two had objected, the rest of the group thought it perfect to honor two orphans by giving them a place where their names would reside permanently.
“It should have been Louise,” Jesse teased.
She laughed. “Thank goodness it wasn’t. I have all the honor I need right here with my husband and children.”
As the wagons rolled up the river road and Singapore disappeared from sight, she could only look forward, confident that together they would make a wonderful new beginning.
* * * * *
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Dear Reader,
Lighthouses have always fascinated me. When I was growing up, I would watch the light from the offshore lighthouse come on at dusk. Later, in travels, I’ve been able to tour many a lighthouse. Researching how they operated in the 1870s was a joy. The Great Lakes have many remote and island lighthouses. I always wondered how a keeper and his family endured the isolation. Perhaps that will be another story.
The real-life story of Singapore, Michigan, fascinated me for many years. Sadly, it’s a familiar tale for lumber boom towns. Many disappeared, though not as literally as Singapore, which ended up buried beneath the sand dunes. I’ve loved setting a series there, and hope you have enjoyed the stories of Louise, Pearl, Amanda and Fiona.
That’s why from the start I envisioned these characters moving on together to begin anew. You will see familiar names in my early 20th-century books set in Pearlman, Michigan. The first of those books is Soaring Home, set in 1919. See my website at christineelizabethjohnson.com for a full list of the “Pearlman” books and more about how the characters in this series became the founders of Pearlman. You can also contact me through the Connect page on my website. I do love hearing from you!
I wish you a joyous Christmas.
Blessings,
Christine Johnson
Keep reading for an excerpt from HIS FRONTIER CHRISTMAS FAMILY by Regina Scott.
We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Love Inspired Historical title.
You find illumination in days gone by. Love Inspired Historical stories lift the spirit as heroines tackle the challenges of life in another era with hope, faith and a focus on family.
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Would-Be Mistletoe Wife Page 24
