“Happy?” she asked, her hand stealing out to touch his arm from under the buffalo robe he’d taken from his own wagon.
“I am.” There was no way to share with her the enormity of relief he felt, no longer under the burden of his secret.
“Eric, I’m sorry for what I did.”
“I know that,” he answered, and it was true. He did know it.
“Are you still leaving Jubilee?” Her voice was small and hesitant.
“I don’t want to,” he answered, not daring to look at her. He didn’t want to move away and abandon all he had built, but he doubted he could ever feel that this was really home again.
He’d sooner have his tongue torn out, though, than say that to her. She clearly felt terrible about her impetuous outburst in the telegraph office, and he was not going to say any more about it than necessary.
“Jubilee fits you like a good coat,” she said.
He laughed, and the sound rolled across the prairie night. “I can see why you’re a writer.”
“Well, it does,” she protested, “and I promise that I’ll figure out a way to set things right with the folks in town.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know, Rose. Trust me. I’ve been over this twelve ways to midnight, and I can’t see any way to fix it.”
“We Kellys are a stubborn bunch,” she said. “Just wait. I’ll figure out some way to deal with this.”
When they entered the lobby of the Territorial Hotel, Matthew gaped at her. “What happened to you? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Rose said. “I had a bit of a problem during the blizzard, but thanks to Eric here, I’m safe and sound.”
“You need more rest,” Eric warned. “I’ll talk to Clanahan about getting Big Ole and the wagon back to him.”
He wanted to kiss her good night, but he settled for an awkward pat on her shoulder.
He was right, Rose realized. She did need more rest. She was just about to start to get ready for bed when there was a knock on the door.
She opened it and saw the young chambermaid. “Sorry, ma’am,” the maid said, “but I’m to tell you there’re two men downstairs in the reception room.”
“Two men?”
The maid grinned. “It’s just the minister and the doctor. I think they’re both checking up on you.”
Rose quickly fixed her hair as best she could and limped downstairs to the small room.
The two men stood when she came in.
“We saw Eric, and he told us the story of Big Ole and how he saved you from freezing to death,” the doctor said.
“You do know that you’re a very lucky young woman,” the reverend added. “Blizzards are nothing to be trifled with. God’s hand was certainly on you.”
“Eric suggested that we come here to visit with you. He’s a bit concerned yet about your health, and he wants to make sure you don’t have any lingering aftereffects,” Dr. Pinkley said. “You look fine to me—a bit worn, perhaps—but we’d all feel more secure if I took a look at the bump on your head, checked your ankle, and made sure you didn’t get frostbite.”
“I’m not sure exactly why I’m here.” The minister peered at her questioningly. “He told us he’d meet us here. Do you know why?”
“Yes.” The single word came out in a whisper. “Yes, I think I do. But I can’t tell you. I don’t know why he said—”
“It’s all right, Rose.” Eric spoke from the doorway. “I’ve thought about it, and these two men are not only the safest folks to trust with a secret; they’re the only ones who might be able to help us.”
He sat next to her, and under the table, she took his hand in hers as he began to tell his story….
The men pushed back their chairs and stood. “I’ve heard enough,” the doctor said. “I’m entirely satisfied that Eric—Dr. Johansen, that is—is not guilty of anything except a heart that is warm and caring.”
“I agree,” said the minister. “We’ll announce that we’ve investigated and found your reputation to be above reproach. I believe that for most people, the word of a doctor and a man of the cloth will be sufficient to clear your name, Eric.”
“How can I thank you both?” Eric asked, shaking each man’s hand.
“Well, the pew where the Nielsen family sits has gotten a bit loose,” Reverend Wilton said, “and Grethe Nielsen just told me yesterday that they’re expecting the eighth little one come spring. I figure that family alone can keep you busy at Redeemer. Pretty soon they’ll be occupying two pews.”
“And I sure could use some help when I go out of town. Last year I went to visit my sister in Pittsburgh, and some folks here had the nerve to get sick!” The doctor chuckled. “I’d be honored to have you work with me full time or part time, depending on what you prefer.”
“You mean depending on whether I can get my plow back,” Eric said with a smile. “I sold it to the postmaster when I was planning to leave.”
“Oh, he’ll sell it back,” Reverend Wilton said with a breezy wave. “I’ll talk to him if he gives you any trouble.”
“Speaking of trouble,” the doctor said with a wink to the minister as the two men stood to leave, “what’s this I hear about wedding bells for you and a certain schoolteacher?”
“Linnea? Really?” Rose clapped her hands together gleefully.
Reverend Wilton smiled. “Yes, Linnea and I are getting married.”
“Wonderful news, Reverend,” Eric said, shaking his hand. “Linnea’s a good woman.”
The three men discussed the merits of marriage, wheat versus oats, and their hopes for a fairly dry winter, and Rose sat back, smiling. This was home. This was where she needed to be, right here in Jubilee, right here with Eric. She began to relax, and soon she had trouble keeping her eyes open.
She yawned, and Eric apologized. “Here I told you to get some rest and kept you up anyway. Go back to your room and get some sleep. I promise no more interruptions!”
She was so exhausted that the long staircase seemed almost endless, even when she was cradled in Eric’s protective arms.
“I prescribe sleep,” he whispered at her door as his lips brushed her forehead, carefully avoiding the injured part, and she nodded numbly. All she could think of was sleep.
But what she saw when she went into her room woke her up immediately.
There was a white envelope on the table, with a note on the front: From the telegraph office.
She tore it open with shaking fingers.
Nothing. Best, Evelyn Roller.
Rose sank down on the bed and laughed until she cried. Evelyn, dear Evelyn, who was quite slow, incredibly accurate—and very late.
Eric had given her back her little bag, and although the dyes from the embroidered rose had run together and some of the beading had come off, her tiny notepad and pen were intact.
She sat down and began to write.
This is my last article from Jubilee. If there ever was a place that God touched, where He put His fingertip on a plot of land and called it heaven on earth, it is here. The sky and the earth roll on forever, and at the horizon neither sky nor land ends. Instead, they go on farther than the human eye can see, farther than the human mind can comprehend, but not farther than the heart can know.
The people here have welcomed me into their fold. Even when I made terrible decisions—and I’ve made some spectacularly awful ones—they were ready to forgive. I can never thank them enough for that.
My mother, the incomparable Katie Kelly, told me time and again when I was growing up that forgiveness is the finest grace, and while I have to admit that at the time I thought those were pretty words but empty ones, now I know that what she taught me is true.
I’m tired as I write this. We’ve had a fierce blizzard, and I almost died in it. But a homesteader risked his life for me to save my own. You’ve come to know him through these articles. His name is Eric Johansen.
I arrived in Jubilee with a faith in God that was born into my blood by my parents.
Every Sunday, Katie and Patrick Kelly marched me into First Church. I know the apostles’ names as well as my own brothers’. I can recite the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, and the Twenty-third Psalm.
But nothing prepared me for bringing faith, real faith, into my soul like Jubilee did.
Like fine, strong metal, it was forged by fire and grows today.
And certainly I wasn’t ready for—
She laid down her pen and rubbed her eyes. She was exhausted, but she had to finish. It was almost done. Just one more paragraph…
Big Ole had been returned to Clanahan’s, and this time the owner gave Rose a smaller horse hooked to a light sleigh. “Now use some common sense,” Mr. Clanahan growled when she got into the sleigh, but his words were gentled with concern.
“I’ll keep my eye on the weather,” she promised him.
The trip to Eric’s farm was easy. The cloudless sky was an astonishing blue, and the snow still sparkled in a glittering display of jeweled white.
He emerged from the barn when she arrived. “Dim-witted ducks,” he said good-naturedly. “They’ve gotten into the oats and made quite a mess. You’ll never guess which one was the ringleader.”
She stood first on one leg, then on the other, like an anxious schoolgirl. She knew she was grinning, but she couldn’t stop.
“You’ve got some news?” he asked. “I’m about ready for a break. Let’s go inside, and I’ll make us some coffee.”
As soon as he joined her at the kitchen table, one of the few pieces of furniture he hadn’t sold, she laid the sheets of paper in front of her. “I’m going to burst if I don’t tell you,” she said. “It’s either the best article I’ve ever written or the worst. Here. You read.” She pushed it across the table to him.
She watched his face as he read. He didn’t smile, didn’t react at all, and her heart contracted. She’d gone too far with it. If only she could reach across and snatch back the words!
It was too telling. Too forward. Too honest.
He laid it down. “Are you serious?”
“Yes. No. Yes, yes, I am. Or not.”
A grin toyed around his lips. “As long as you’re sure.”
She sat up straight, trying to regain the last shreds of her tattered dignity. “I’m sure.”
He gave her back the papers. “Would you read me the last paragraph, please? I want to hear it from your lips.”
She cleared her throat and began to read:
“I have fallen in love with the Dakota Territory, with the endless blue skies, with the endless wind, with the endless snow. I have also fallen in love with a Dakota homesteader named Eric Johansen. I am here to stay.”
Chapter 17
Love is strong. Stronger than a circus weight lifter. Stronger than a jungle tiger.
Stronger than a prairie blizzard. Yet it speaks with a voice softer than a thought—and we hear it.
Linnea fussed with the bouquet of berries and evergreen branches, charmingly tied with a blue and silver streamer that matched the velvet ribbons in Rose’s hair. “If you’d waited,” she scolded Rose, “you could have had a wildflower bouquet. Getting married in Dakota during the winter limits what I can do.”
“This is beautiful,” Rose assured her friend. “It looks like Christmas, which it should, since it is. Christmas Eve, that is.”
The schoolteacher grinned. “You have such a way with words.”
“I’m a bit nervous,” Rose confessed. “Does my dress look all right?”
“You look splendid in it. Freya did an amazing job on it, didn’t she?” Linnea stood back and studied the ivory lace dress that the shopkeeper had fashioned entirely by hand for Rose. “It looks like a dress you’d find in one of those fancy stores back east, like Macy’s.”
Rose swirled, letting the material swish around her ankles. “Actually, I saw one like this in Marshall Field’s right before I came out here, and Freya managed to figure out what it really looked like from my terrible drawings.”
“She’s got quite a talent.”
“Please tell me that I didn’t get any smudges on it. I hadn’t planned on it snowing so hard tonight, or I would have brought it over earlier and left it here.”
“No, you’re perfect. Just perfect.”
“I hope so. Everybody’s here. Even my brothers.” She peeked through the curtain at the back of the room. “Oh no. My father’s got Arvid buttonholed about something, or maybe it’s the other way around. If my father goes back to Chicago with a duck tucked under his arm, I’ll know that Patrick Kelly has finally met his match.”
“Rose, honey.” Katie Kelly’s soft voice spoke to her from the door. “The wedding’s going to start soon. Are you ready?”
“Mrs. Kelly, I forgot your corsage!” Linnea pinned an artful concoction of evergreen sprigs and lace onto the soft buttery yellow dress that set off the older woman’s gentle gray eyes.
“It’s really lovely,” Mrs. Kelly said. “Linnea, you are quite a talented young lady. Thank you so much for doing this.”
“My pleasure. Let me check on the men and make sure they’ve all got their boutonnieres on correctly.”
When they were alone, Mrs. Kelly took Rose’s hands. “Honey, he is the one, isn’t he?”
“Yes, Mama, he is.”
“Your father and I like him, although you do know that no one on this earth is suitable for you in your father’s eyes.”
Rose grinned. “Let me guess. He had a talk with Eric.”
“Of course he did.” The two women shared a knowing smile. “It’s a time-honored tradition. He listed all the things Eric is not allowed to do: make you cry, make you sad, make you worry…He’s got quite an inventory that he went through. He worked on it all the way from Chicago. Whatever the wedding vows don’t cover, Papa added it on. He loves you so. We both do.”
“I know that, Mama.”
“I have something for you.”
Katie Kelly leaned down and took a package from under the dressing table that had been set up in a makeshift bride’s room. “My mother did this for me, and I want to do it for you.”
Inside the tissue wrapping was a pale blue Bible; on the front etched in silver letters were the words HOLY BIBLE, and at the bottom, in elegant script, was Rose Kelly Johansen.
“It’s beautiful, Mama!” Rose breathed.
“Open it, Rose. I’ve started the heritage page for you.”
In Katie Kelly’s fine handwriting, the top line had been inscribed: Rose Kelly m. Eric Johansen, Jubilee, DT, 24 Dec 1879. “Love never fails.” 1 Corinthians 13:8.
“Oh, Mama.” Her voice husky as she fought back tears, Rose embraced her mother. “This is perfect. Thank you so much.”
Linnea popped her blond head in. “Ready to go, ladies? It’s time.”
“Any last-minute advice?” Rose asked her mother as she clutched her hands tightly.
“Just this—remember to love him. Keep him close to your heart at all times. And, Rose, honey, if you two pray together, you’ll find your path will be easier. But mainly, Rose, love and respect what you two have together.”
Rose smiled. “Mama, how could I do anything but that? You and Papa raised me too well.”
“Too well?” Katie Kelly hugged her daughter. “I don’t know if there’s such a thing as that.”
“Now!” Linnea whispered. “Here comes Dr. Pinkley to seat you, Mrs. Kelly. As soon as that’s done, we’re going to have a wedding!”
Somehow Rose got down the aisle, balanced on the strong arm of her father, although she couldn’t remember anything except people watching her and the feeling that she was surrounded by smiling faces on every side.
Everyone she had come to know and love in Jubilee was there, all of them wishing her well in her new life.
Eric was waiting for her in front of the altar, looking stylishly elegant in his new black suit. His hair was neatly combed, and he was more handsome than she’d ever seen him. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered as h
e took his place beside her.
“Dearly beloved,” Reverend Wilton intoned, and with those well-known lines, the ceremony began.
Before she knew it, she’d said, “I do,” been kissed by Eric, and was walking down the aisle, her hand in his.
At the end of the aisle, he drew her into his arms. “Well, Mrs. Johansen, how did you like our wedding?”
“I don’t know,” she confessed. “I was so nervous that the whole thing was a blur. Say,” she said, looking up at him teasingly, “you don’t suppose we could do it again, do you? I remember saying, ‘I do,’ but I’m not sure exactly what I agreed to.”
“You promised to love me madly for the rest of your life,” Eric said. “And make me lefse at least once a week.”
“Now that,” Rose said, “I can do. Shall we seal it with another kiss?”
“That sounds like a splendid idea.” Eric had just bent his head to hers when Patrick Kelly’s voice boomed across the church.
“A duck? What would I do with a duck in Chicago? Put it on a leash and walk it in the park?”
News item, Chicago Tattler
Amidst wreaths and candles, Rose Kelly, formerly of Chicago, Illinois, and Eric Johansen, of Jubilee, Dakota Territory, exchanged Christmas Eve wedding vows in Jubilee’s Redeemer Church. The former Rose Kelly was an established society page reporter for the Tattler, recently recognized nationally for a series of articles about homesteading in Dakota. Dr. Johansen is a farmer as well as a physician in Jubilee. We wish the couple great happiness together.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Rosey Dow is a bestselling and award-winning author with more than half a million books sold. Her novel, Reaping the Whirlwind, won the Christy Award for excellence in fiction. A former missionary and lifelong mystery buff, Rosey now makes her home in Delaware, where she edits, writes, and speaks full-time. She invites her readers to connect with her on Facebook.
Cathy Marie Hake is a Southern California native. She met her two loves at church: Jesus and her husband, Christopher. An RN, she loved working in oncology as well as teaching Lamaze. Health issues forced her to retire, but God opened new possibilities with writing. Since their children have moved out and are married, Cathy and Chris dote on dogs they rescue from a local shelter. A sentimental pack rat, Cathy enjoys scrapbooking and collecting antiques. “I’m easily distracted during prayer, so I devote certain tasks and chores to specific requests or persons so I can keep faithful in my prayer life.” Since her first book in 2000, she’s been on multiple bestseller and readers’ favorite lists.
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