Rosemary held her breath, and she felt Finn’s tension beside her. She didn’t want land at the risk of her husband’s life. God, please intervene! she prayed.
Clayton stared hard at Rosemary. “You think you’ve won, little miss?”
Without batting an eyelash, Rosemary shook her head. “The only one fighting was you, Mr. Clayton.”
For a few tense seconds, he continued to stare. Then he nodded. “Then I guess this is over for now. But I intend to go to Williston. If there’s even the tiniest detail out of order, I’m coming back.”
“There won’t be.”
Finn slipped his arm around her waist, drawing her close to him, as they watched Mr. Clayton and his men ride away in a cloud of dust. Sheriff Mayfield turned. “Well, you two took the wind right out of his sails, didn’t you? Congratulations.”
“Thank you for standing with us, Sheriff Mayfield,” Rosemary said. “You might not have a job in Paddington after today.”
He shrugged. “It’s time for me to move on anyway. I don’t think I’m cut out to be a lawman.” He tipped his hat to Finn. “Well, it looks like the best man won.”
Rosemary laughed. “He’s the best man for me. And he always has been.”
Finn pulled her close as the sheriff got on his horse and rode away. “It looks like this land is all yours now.”
Rosemary wound her arms around his neck and pulled his head down to hers. “Ours.” Their lips met, and Rosemary would have happily stayed in his arms the rest of the day, but a sound inside the house pulled them apart.
“Did I hear Sarah?” Finn asked. The two inclined their heads toward the door, smiled at each other, and entered their home together to answer their daughter’s cry.
Epilogue
.............................
The trees had struggled this year, but by the grace of God, they’d made it. There was nothing to keep Finn and Rosemary from proving they had met all the requirements for this 160 acres, as they had Finn’s original homestead three years earlier.
“You about ready?” Finn asked Rosemary.
She nodded and grabbed the picnic basket from the rocking chair on the porch. “I’ve been waiting for you since you asked me not to walk out there alone.”
Rosemary rubbed her protruding belly and looked across the land she and Finn finally owned. Five years of sweat, tears, joy, and sorrow had brought them to this moment. Finn caught her hand with one of his and held their two-year-old son, Roland, in his other arm. Sarah raced through the field toward their picnic spot in the exact middle of the land, between Finn’s homestead and Rosemary’s homestead, where they had built a pond to sit beside, cool their feet on a summer day, and fish to their heart’s content.
“Are you sure you want to walk?” Finn asked, looking down at her belly.
“Yes, I feel good. Tired, but strong.” They set out from the house, Finn adjusting his stride to hers as she labored to keep moving forward.
A wagon approached just as they reached the creek. “They’re here!” Sarah called out. She ran to the wagon to greet Gerta, who, at seven years old, was only two years older than Sarah.
Agnes and Dr. Hiram Richards climbed down from the wagon. They had become Finn and Rosemary’s closest friends over the years. They arrived with all of Agnes’s children except Marta, who had moved with her husband, Peter, to Bismarck two years earlier.
“How are you feeling, Rosemary?” Agnes asked as Hiram helped her from the wagon.
“I think it’s a good thing your husband is here today,” Rosemary said, laughing. “I feel like this baby could be born any second.”
“Then maybe ve shall haf new baby.” She smiled. “My Hiram is very goot at bringing babies.”
Rosemary laughed. “I hear the new teacher is staying at Dottie’s,” she said, laying out the blanket.
Dr. Richards chuckled. “Heinrich is smitten with the pretty young thing. I have a feeling he’s not going to be single much longer.”
“It is true. My Heinrich is smitten. He is much too young, though.” Agnes sighed, lifting food from the basket. “I still cannot believe Miss Dottie haf gone to be vith the Lord.”
Dottie had succumbed to heart failure during the winter, but not before amending her will, naming Agnes as the sole owner of the boardinghouse. Agnes and the children had never left after her surgery. Dottie had begged Agnes to stay and help her run the place. When Hiram asked for Agnes’s hand, she insisted they live at the boardinghouse and not leave Dottie alone.
The day progressed beautifully. The children played, the boys fished. Hiram and Agnes went off hand in hand to see the new lambs, and Rosemary watched, smiling, as the two families dotted the fields much like the sheep.
Catching her mood, Finn grabbed her hand and brought it to his lips. “Rosemary, look. The first of the wild roses of the summer.”
Rosemary followed his gaze and smiled. “They’re beautiful.”
“We’ll get some for you to set out on the table while you recover from having the baby.”
She shook her head. “Let’s not. These are the first.” She took in a breath of clean summer air and watched the breeze blow against the soft petals. “Let’s leave them alone and let them grow as wild and free as they want.”
“Like you?” He pressed a kiss to her temple.
She shook her head. “I never wanted to be wild and free.” She closed her eyes as weariness washed over her. “I wanted to be captured and loved.”
“And so you are, my Rose. So you are.”
Author’s Note
...............................
Dear Readers,
Thank you for coming along with me for Love Finds You in Wildrose, North Dakota. I have to tell you, while researching this book, I fell in love with this part of the country. Wildrose is so far north, it’s almost Canada.
Because the name of the town is so beautiful, I desperately wanted to set a story here. But here’s the thing. Trying to settle such a place was almost impossible, and my research kept bringing my story to a standstill. So in order to bring you the story of these characters I grew to love so much, I had a long talk with my editor, and we ultimately decided that the story and the town of Wildrose were worth a little creative license. To that end, I grabbed the existing historical truths and backed them up a decade or so.
Please forgive me, North Dakotans, who know better than to think there were homesteaders in Wildrose as early as 1889, when the first homesteader didn’t file his claim until the 1900s. And in fact, Wildrose wasn’t an incorporated town until 1913 and a Great Northern Railroad terminus until 1916. Three years seems sadly short-lived to me, so perhaps that’s why I had to lengthen the time frame of the surrounding area. You are also much too wise to think the town of Paddington (which I had to use, because if I were ever to build my very own town, this is what I would name it) was as built up as it was in my story almost two decades before it truly was. As a matter of fact, Paddington, built on the shore of Willow Lake (another name I love), only came along in 1909. As the railroad chugged into the area, two cities became one: Paddington and Montrose. Their two post offices merged and were supposed to become the city of Montrose. However, because the town of Montrose already existed as a stop along the railroad line, the railroad men noted the beautiful wild roses and suggested the name Wildrose. For many years afterward, Willow Lake, on which the town of Paddington was built, was used as a resort of sorts for ranchers, homesteaders, and railroad men.
Why, you might ask, didn’t I just set the story later in time? Well, I could have, but I didn’t want my characters to add the tragedy of World War I to their already-harsh existence. Quite plainly, I wanted their love to have a chance, and I wanted to write a prairie romance rather than a World War I romance.
So, yes, I took some license with the historical accuracy inasmuch as dates were concerned and a name or two of towns that might not have existed quite as early as I asked them to come to life for my story. I hope the time-trave
led facts will not be a distraction for the average reader. I beg you to bear with me, to suspend just a tiny bit of disbelief, and lose yourself within the pages of this story I fell in love with.
God bless you as you live, move, and have your being in Him.
—Tracey Bateman
About the Author
...........................
Tracey Bateman is an award-winning author with nearly one million books in print. Since publishing her first novel in 2000, Tracey has written more than thirty books, including Love Finds You in Deadwood, South Dakota (published as Tracey Cross). She’s also the author of The Widow of Saunders Creek (releasing in 2012), Thirsty, Tandem, the Westward Hearts series, the Kansas Home series, the Drama Queens series, the Claire Everett series, and the Penbrook Diaries series. Tracey is an active member of the American Fiction Christian Writers and has served as the organization’s president.
Tracey loves living in the beautiful Missouri Ozarks. When she’s not writing, she reads, watches sci-fi, and tries to catch up with friends on Facebook and e-mail. She also loves to cook and is thrilled to create culinary works for her family members—who sometimes even like what she creates.
Tracey and her husband, Rusty, have four children, and they love to watch God’s faithfulness to the next generation of Batemans. More than anything, Tracey is grateful for her family and the ability to write for a wonderful God.
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Love Finds You in Wildrose, North Dakota Page 24