Books by Lauraine Snelling
LEAH’S GARDEN
The Seeds of Change
A Blessing to Cherish
UNDER NORTHERN SKIES
The Promise of Dawn
A Breath of Hope
A Season of Grace
A Song of Joy
SONG OF BLESSING
To Everything a Season
A Harvest of Hope
Streams of Mercy
From This Day Forward
An Untamed Heart
RED RIVER OF THE NORTH
An Untamed Land
A New Day Rising
A Land to Call Home
The Reapers’ Song
Tender Mercies
Blessing in Disguise
RETURN TO RED RIVER
A Dream to Follow
Believing the Dream
More Than a Dream
DAUGHTERS OF BLESSING
A Promise for Ellie
Sophie’s Dilemma
A Touch of Grace
Rebecca’s Reward
HOME TO BLESSING
A Measure of Mercy
No Distance Too Far
A Heart for Home
WILD WEST WIND
Valley of Dreams
Whispers in the Wind
A Place to Belong
DAKOTAH TREASURES
Ruby • Pearl
Opal • Amethyst
SECRET REFUGE
Daughter of Twin Oaks
Sisters of the Confederacy
The Long Way Home
A Secret Refuge 3-in-1
© 2021 by Lauraine Snelling
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan
www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Ebook edition created 2021
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
ISBN 978-0-7642-3569-6 (trade paper)
ISBN 978-0-7642-3570-2 (cloth)
ISBN 978-0-7642-3571-9 (large print)
ISBN 978-1-4934-2978-3 (ebook)
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Dan Thornberg, Design Source Creative Services
Author is represented by the Books & Such Literary Agency.
I dedicate The Seeds of Change,
and the rest of the LEAH’S GARDEN series,
with great love and admiration,
to Wendy Lawton,
agent extraordinaire, deep friend, sister in Christ.
She has made my life richer on so many levels.
Another of God’s gifts to me.
Contents
Cover
Half Title Page
Books by Lauraine Snelling
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Epigraph
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
Epilogue
About the Authors
Back Ads
Cover Flaps
Back Cover
Forsythia
Because it flowers in late winter or early spring, forsythia stands for spring sun and anticipation. After the cold of winter, we are all longing for the sun, and the bright gold of first-blooming forsythia cheers us beyond measure.
Forsythia is a shrub, and branches can be easily forced by cutting them on the diagonal, placing them in a tall vase or bucket of water, and checking them daily.
Nothing says spring is almost here like the bright, cheerful forsythia.
1
LINKSBURG, OHIO
MAY 1865
I truly hate that man.”
“Lark, you know Ma said we should never hate anybody.” Larkspur’s sister Forsythia, third of the Nielsen daughters, spoke out of the side of her mouth, the way they had learned so as not to be heard by anybody else. Especially in church. Forsythia had spent a good part of her young life trying to keep her older sister out of trouble.
Larkspur refocused her attention forward, clenching her fingers in her lap to keep from leaping out of the pew.
Deacon Wiesel raised his Bible, the pages rippling from the force of his shaking. His voice nearly tore the hinges from the doors. “Women, if you are indeed following God’s Word . . .”
Larkspur watched the red of his face deepen. Perhaps a heart attack? A stroke?
“You are ordered to submit to your husband’s every utterance. God says so, right here.” The words thundered, and spittle spattered the pulpit. “If you are not married, your father is in charge. For too many of you, your mouth is your biggest sin.” Little pig eyes slit nearly shut, he stared right at Larkspur as if daring her to speak.
Lark returned stare for stare, knowing she was aggravating the deacon but no longer caring. According to him, women should never raise their eyes—only a downcast posture was proper.
Forsythia laid a gentle hand on Larkspur’s shaking knee, and Lark felt an elbow digging into her left side. Her sister Delphinium was only reminding her that were their mother here, she would be mortified by the actions of her eldest daughter. Surely she had taught her daughters better than to let their emotions show like this in church. But then, Ma had never met Deacon Wiesel or watched him drive their dear Pastor Earling to his deathbed. At least, Lark sure found it suspicious that the two men had gone for a buggy ride and only the deacon returned alive, lamenting that their pastor had died in an accident. But how had Wiesel survived a runaway horse and Pastor Earling hadn’t? And if their mother could see how the weasel took out his furies on his wife . . .
Lark glanced at Climie Wiesel, cowering in a forward pew. Bruised, bones broken, terrified he would one day abuse their dreamed-of children, Climie made excuses for her husband whenever she and Larkspur talked. But they all knew that Climie had lost that last baby and those before because the deacon beat her so badly. When Wiesel got liquored up, there was no stopping him. They all knew that, but their mother had gone on to heaven before Climie started taking refuge with the Nielsens when her husband went deep in his cups. Sadly, often not soon enough.
Something had to be done. After the accident, Deacon Wiesel had taken over, ignoring all efforts of the other church leaders to find a new pastor. Larkspur tried to shut down her mind by running through multiplication tables. It didn’t help. She tried adding columns of three numbers. Nothing helped. She raised her head when she no longer heard the weasel haranguing them with the Bible verses.
But he was staring right at her. “Women, o
bey your husbands, for that is the word of the Lord.”
For Forsythia’s sake, Larkspur stared down at her clenched hands. She was shaking so hard the entire pew shuddered. Thank heaven I am not married, and if all men are like you, I never will be.
At a faint thud from the front of the church, Larkspur looked up.
Climie had slumped over in the pew where she sat. Fainted from the sheer force of her husband’s hypocrisy?
Lark half rose to go to her.
“Young woman,” Deacon Wiesel fairly roared, “sit down!”
“Your wife, sir.” Lark shook off Forsythia’s restraining hand and stood to her full stature, taller than the deacon himself if he hadn’t been in the pulpit. “She’s fainted.”
“She has merely fallen asleep. You should concern yourself with hearing the word of the Lord and leave my family to me.”
Mrs. Smutly, the woman on the piano bench who thought Deacon Wiesel ordered the sun to rise in the morning, gave a firm nod and cast a disapproving glance at the slender woman collapsed in the front pew.
Lark once again matched Wiesel glare for glare, then pushed past her two sisters and strode up the outside aisle toward the exit as if she were stomping ants. She ignored the scowls she could feel stabbing her and let the outside door click shut behind her. Shaking her head, Larkspur sucked in a deep breath, pausing at the top step to inhale the clean, quiet air.
“‘Onward, Christian soldiers . . .’” The closing hymn floated out through the walls and windows, giving no hint of what had gone on inside.
Or what was going on inside of her.
She had to get away before the congregation was released from the evening service. Deacon Wiesel would make his way up the aisle to stand at the door and greet everyone, and she didn’t want to be here when that happened.
Starting down the walk to the street, she heard her siblings exiting behind her.
“You’ve done it now.” Her brother Anders, the eldest of the Nielsen clan, joined her. “I’m going back to the store. You’re welcome to join me. Dealing with numbers always calms you down.”
Larkspur shook her head. “If someone came in, I might bite their head off.”
“Why can’t you just ignore him? Or stop going to church?”
“That would really do it. Both Pa and Ma would be shuddering in their graves.”
“Wait, Lark,” Delphinium, next in age below Larkspur, called from behind them. “Let’s walk together.”
“I don’t think you want to hear or even feel what I am thinking, Del.”
“We know what you’re thinking, but it doesn’t do any good.”
“Look, several of us from the board have written to the head church office requesting that they send us a new pastor,” Anders said. “Till then, we’ll have to ignore him.”
“Ignore when his poor abused wife keels over in the front pew?” Lark demanded.
Anders stopped at the wooden porch of Nielsen Mercantile, which had been started by their father. “So what are you going to do, then?”
“I’m going home, that’s what I’m doing.” Larkspur turned to her sisters. “You can go back there and make nice with everybody, but I’m finished.” She stomped ahead of them, the other three trailing behind.
“What are we going to do?” Delphinium whispered. “When she gets like this, she won’t back down.”
On the corner of the next block, rowdy piano music poured out of the swinging door of a saloon, inviting passersby to come on in. The sisters automatically stepped off the boardwalk to move to the other side of the street.
“Deacon Wiesel already blames Lark for all his problems. He thinks she influenced Climie and turned her against him. Now he’s going to come after us, and if he doesn’t do that, he’ll at least tell everybody else how horrible we are, and there go our reputations right down the drain.” That was Lilac, the youngest of the sisters at nineteen.
“Reputation isn’t the most important thing here,” Forsythia’s gentle voice cut in. She caught up to Larkspur and put her hand through her sister’s arm. Forsythia said nothing more, just walked quietly with her for a few moments.
A measure of peace seeped into Lark’s bones bit by bit, radiating from her sister’s spirit. She lowered her stiff shoulders with a sigh. “I just couldn’t sit there anymore.”
“I know.”
“When I saw Climie crumple . . . Isn’t there anything else we can do?”
Before Forsythia could respond, someone burst through the saloon doors and charged across the street in the waning light, nearly running into them.
“You gotta help me! I’m in bad trouble.” Their baby brother, seventeen-year-old Jonah, grabbed Larkspur’s hand and tried to drag her across the street.
“Jonah George Nielsen!” Larkspur jerked her hand free. “What in the world do you think you’re doing?”
He fell to his knees, clutching her skirt. “He’s a new man in town, and he’s got all our money, and Bernie gave him a deed, and he’s got that too and . . .” His words tripped over each other, tumbling into a cacophony of sound.
Shaking her head, Lark pulled him back to his feet. “How many times have you promised me you would stay out of that place?”
“Just this once! All I ask is that you come help me. You know cards. We were just playing for a good time, but I think he’s cheating.” He sucked in a deep breath. “You could stop him.”
Lark sighed. “The stupidest thing I ever did was teach you to play cards.”
“He would have learned from someone else.” Delphinium had caught up and rolled her eyes. “Come on, Jonah, just come home with us, and—”
“I can’t. Jasper lost his horse and saddle, and Bernie bet his land.”
“And lost it. Won’t you fellows ever learn?” Del asked.
“He’s cheating, I know he is.”
“Makes no never mind. Had you stayed out of the saloon, you wouldn’t be in this mess.” Larkspur stared at her youngest brother. Were those tears in his eyes? Was he that afraid? She noticed details no one else did, and that tended to help her win at cards, but she’d promised herself not to help him again.
But since, according to Deacon Wiesel, she was a fallen woman anyway—and worthless, at that—she straightened her spine and sucked in a deep breath. Maybe giving someone their comeuppance would be a relief to her feelings right now.
Turning to her sisters, she said gently, “You go on home, and I’ll bring Jonah in a little while.”
“Larkspur, surely you’re not going to—”
“Just go on home and put on the coffeepot. This won’t take long.”
“Oh, dear Lord, protect us.” Lilac glared at the youngest of the family. “You, Jonah George Nielsen, are nothing but trouble. Have been since the day you were born.”
Jonah swallowed and nodded, penitence dripping from his eyes. “I know, but this is the end. Just get me out of this, Larkspur, and I promise I’ll never gamble again.”
“We’ve heard that before,” Del said.
Larkspur tucked her arm in Jonah’s and gave a tug. “Let’s get this over with.”
2
As they entered the saloon, Larkspur thought of the two dollars in her reticule. Surely that would be enough to get in the game. She knew she would have to lose some before she could clean the floor with the varmint. That would teach him to come into their little town and destroy some of the boys who should have been men by now.
Cigar smoke cast a silvered haze across the room. The piano player stopped playing when he saw Larkspur but picked up again at the bartender’s barked order.
“Well, well, look who’s here.” Bonnie Belle, the hostess, greeted them. Her look at Larkspur was questioning, but she kept her smile in place. “Welcome.”
“Thank you. I just came to see what Jonah has been raving about.” Lark patted his arm and batted her eyes.
Demure, simpering, and with her smile sweeter than sugar and her voice the low contralto of a siren, she let Jonah lead
her to the card table where a fine-looking gentleman, puffing his cigar, rocked his chair back on two legs.
“Hey, boy, you brought a lady in here. What will your mama say?” the man teased.
Larkspur held her handkerchief up to her nose. “I’m just curious as to what Jonah finds so fascinating here. Do you mind if I sit and watch?”
If only Deacon Wiesel could see her now. That thought lent wings to her charade. At least she might prompt some justice in one place today.
“Ah, sweet lady, house rules say that observers can’t sit at the table. Players only. You ever played poker before?” The stranger’s dark eyes studied her through the smoke ring he blew.
She nodded. “Jonah has been trying to teach us. It’s a good parlor game during the winter.”
“Well, you just sit down and make yourself at home.” The stranger glanced around the table. “Anyone else want to play awhile longer?”
Larkspur nodded for Jonah to pull out her chair. She smiled at the other players.
The visiting gentleman had the manners to stand and remove the cigar from his mouth. “Jonah, would you introduce me to this lovely lady?”
“I, um . . .” Jonah gave a jerky nod. “Miss Nielsen, I’d like you to meet Mr. Ringwald.”
“My friends call me Slate,” the stranger added.
“A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Ringwald.” Larkspur tipped her head and cast him a gracious smile. Considering the situation, she wasn’t sure she wanted him to know her name, but manners were manners.
“So.” Ringwald sat back down and rubbed his hands together. “Who else still wants to play?”
Jonah’s best friend, Bernie, closed his eyes as if in prayer. He had been in and out of the Nielsen house ever since the boys started school. “Not at all,” he murmured. After all, she’d taught him the game too. He glanced up at the dealer as if asking permission, since he’d just lost his last dime.
An old guy who’d given up sometime earlier tossed a couple of dollars in front of Bernie. “You can pay me back.”
Larkspur studied the gambler from under her eyelashes as she fumbled in her reticule, seeming to search for her money. A black cutaway coat of fine wool, pleated white shirt with cuff links at the wrist, a ring that held a rather obtrusive shimmery stone. Not a working man by any means, at least not at what she would call working.
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