Season Of Hope

by Cox, Carol

  Her eyelids fluttered closed, then snapped open again when a new thought struck her. What if the byplay she had seen indicated not a lack of concern for herself but a burgeoning interest in Violet? She sat bolt upright in bed, her heart pounding.

  The idea unnerved her, and she swung her legs over the side of the bed, wide awake now. What had she seen that put that notion in her head? Pressing her fingers to her temples, she reviewed the events of the last few days.

  Just how many times had she seen similar behavior and written it off to Daniel’s patience with Violet’s constant pestering? Going over the last week in her mind, she realized there had been other instances like that. Why hadn’t she paid more attention to it before now?

  Alarm welled up inside her, and she rose to pace the room. She shivered when her bare feet met the cold wood floor, but she paid it no mind. Her thoughts tumbled over one another in rapid succession. Could it be possible? Did Daniel feel an attraction to Violet?

  Or was it the farm that held his interest? “If at first you don’t succeed, is that what you’re thinking, Daniel Moore?” If that were the case, she would make sure he never succeeded, no matter how hard he tried. She would have a long talk with Violet, tell her about Daniel’s attempt to gain control of the farm through his earlier proposal. She would make her see she couldn’t get involved with him.

  Violet had never had a suitor. With her innocent, trusting nature, she would be easy prey for any unscrupulous cad who showered her with attention. But Rachel wouldn’t let it happen. If that was what Daniel Moore had in mind, he could think again.

  She climbed back into bed and pulled the covers over her, shivering in earnest now that her thoughts had slowed and she realized how cold she felt. Her mind whirled with imagined scenes in which she broke the news to Violet.

  It wouldn’t be easy. Violet had gotten used to having Daniel around. His presence helped to fill the void in her life left by her father’s passing. Rachel closed her eyes, planning how she would phrase her speech. She would have to be understanding yet firm, gentle but uncompromising.

  And somehow she would have to do it without alienating Daniel. She realized full well what a tricky situation she faced. Not only did she have to save the farm, she had to save her sister as well. And the man she had to save her sister from was the only one who could help her save the farm. Rachel groaned, feeling as though she were about to try to pick her way along a path riddled with pitfalls.

  Since Daniel’s arrival, Violet had seemed happier than she’d been in ages. How could she impart such shattering news without crushing her fragile spirit? It would be hard to convince her of Daniel’s perfidy when he appeared so relaxed and content in her presence, not stilted as he’d been with Rachel lately. A picture of their easy camaraderie earlier that night floated through her memory. Daniel’s friendly banter showed he felt right at home.

  A new, unsettling notion flashed into her mind. What if Daniel truly cared for Violet? Could this be the best possible way for things to work out. . .for Violet, at least? That proposition added a new dimension to her dilemma and robbed her of the possibility of getting any sleep that night.

  eleven

  Daniel let himself into the shack he now called home and struck a match to light the lantern. He shucked off his clothes and climbed into his cot. It’s been a good day, Lord. Thank You for all the work I got done and for everything I learned from Violet.

  He blew out the light and smiled into the darkness. Taking Violet into his confidence had been one of his better ideas. He’d feared her reaction at first, but her delight at helping him win Rachel matched his own at discovering her willingness to lend a hand.

  She would make a good partner. Her enthusiasm for their joint effort heartened him, made him feel that finding a place in Rachel’s heart wouldn’t turn out to be the unattainable goal he had feared.

  He couldn’t tell just when it had happened and sure couldn’t explain why. Letting down his guard and allowing a woman to get under his skin went against his grain, but he knew the truth in his heart: Somehow, God had determined that Rachel Canfield would be his. And if he had learned one thing, it was not to turn down a gift, no matter how unexpected, from the Almighty.

  With a peaceful sigh, he rolled over and went to sleep.

  ❧

  “You should have seen Molly carrying her babies down to the manger, one at a time. Maybe after two weeks with them up in the loft, she just wanted a change of scenery, do you think?” Violet lifted the tiny gray kitten from her lap and held him to her cheek. “Aren’t they darling?”

  Daniel unhooked the claws of its feisty black-and-white brother from his vest. The little animal batted his hand with its paw and hissed. “Darling. Right.” He grinned and tapped a forefinger on the kitten’s nose. It leaped down off his lap, offended, and tottered off to find its mother.

  Daniel leaned back against the manger and watched Violet play with the litter until one by one they wobbled away in search of their supper.

  The last kitten scampered off to join its littermates. “Look at the way Molly takes care of them,” Violet said. “There’s something special about the relationship between a mother and her young, isn’t there?”

  Daniel’s peaceful mood ebbed away in a flash. He merely grunted a response.

  Violet shot a questioning look at him. “What’s wrong? You look like someone just hit you over the head.”

  His stomach bunched into a knot, and he willed it to relax. He’d never talked to anyone about this before and didn’t know why he’d chosen Violet as his confidante, but the time seemed right. He stretched out one leg and hooked an arm around the other knee. “Maybe my ma should have been more like Molly,” he began, long-suppressed memories teasing at the fringes of his mind.

  “I don’t ever remember getting a lot of comfort from her. Plenty of that, though,” he said when Molly swiped a paw at one of the kittens, sending it head over heels. He forced a chuckle and avoided Violet’s curious gaze. “Seemed like none of us older kids ever did anything that suited her.” He toyed with a sliver of wood hanging from the manger. “She took off with a two-bit gambler when I was thirteen.”

  “How awful for you!” Violet’s eyes grew round with compassion. “What kind of mother would go off and leave her children?”

  Daniel shrugged. “Hard to figure. She took my younger brother with her but left me and my older sister there with Pa.” He swallowed hard, trying to banish the remembered pain of the past.

  “And you never saw her again?” Violet’s tremulous voice called him back to the present.

  He shook his head, remembering the hard times that followed. “Pa started drinking pretty heavy after that. Sis was four years older than me, and she jumped at the first chance to get married. She told me I could come live with her, but that didn’t last long. I’d only been with them for a few months when she decided she didn’t need an extra mouth to feed and booted me out.”

  Violet gaped at him. “How old were you then?”

  “Nearly fifteen. I decided it was time to see what I could make of myself. It turned out I was good with horses and made a fair teamster. I found work with a freighter hauling goods to Santa Fe and just kept working my way west.” He broke the sliver into two pieces, then four. “And that’s how I wound up with a mining claim next to your father’s.” He tossed the fragments of wood in the air, trying to lighten both the mood and his load of memories.

  “No wonder it’s hard for you to trust women.”

  Daniel froze. Violet’s quiet statement drove the breath out of him as effectively as a punch to the stomach. She regarded him with solemn eyes. He opened his mouth to contradict her, but the words wouldn’t come. How could someone so young cut straight through to a truth he’d tried to hide, even from himself?

  Violet leaned over and laid a gentle hand on his arm. “Rachel isn’t like that, you know,” she said, coming straight to the point once again.

  One look at her told him there was no
point in trying to sidestep the issue with this girl. He patted her hand. “I know.” A relieved smile spread across his face, and he felt the wall he’d built around himself begin to crumble. “I know.”

  ❧

  From across the yard, Rachel watched the exchange, trying to get a grip on her tumultuous feelings.

  Who would have imagined Daniel playing with a bunch of kittens? Not her. She’d seen him only as a heaven-sent solution to their problem, then a land-hungry scoundrel, then the man who’d decided to pursue her sister. If she wanted to be truthful, she’d also seen him in a far more tender light, but she wasn’t about to go into that now.

  She crossed her arms and continued to observe them. Daniel spoke at some length, a succession of emotions playing over his face. Then Violet placed her hand on his arm and gazed into his eyes. Rachel almost choked when Daniel clasped Violet’s hand in return. She pivoted on her heel and stormed off.

  A very pretty scene, she thought, trying to throw off the guilt she felt at spying on something not intended for her eyes. Very sweet and tender.

  Almost as tender as her own feelings. She stopped short, waving a hand in front of her face as though by doing so she could sweep away the sensations that raged within her. She had to stop this emotional tumult, the overpowering feelings of. . .

  Jealousy? Toward Violet? The unexpected revelation staggered her, and she fought to catch her breath. It couldn’t be. She felt concern about her sister’s well-being. She only had Violet’s best interests at heart. Didn’t she?

  Shocked to the core at finding herself capable of such feelings toward her beloved sister, Rachel stumbled to the house and fled to her room. Chores could wait. The need to bring her bewildered state of mind before the Lord consumed her. Her relationship with Violet—and with the Lord—was more important even than the farm. She fell to her knees beside her bed.

  Hands clasped and head bowed, she remained motionless for some time. The dreadful discovery had dredged up emotions so hateful, so ugly, she felt unable to voice them, even to her Savior.

  “Father,” she finally began in a faltering voice, “what is wrong with me? I thought I had done with thoughts of Daniel. I shouldn’t think of him that way when I know he doesn’t care for me.” She drew a shuddering breath. “How can I—love Daniel,” she uttered her admission with wonder and a tinge of shame, “when he’s falling in love with Violet?” She covered her face with her hands, rendered speechless by her raw emotions.

  “I love Violet, and I don’t want to love Daniel. I don’t want to—I can’t—be jealous of their feelings for each other. Oh, Father, help me!”

  She cried out to heaven with inarticulate sobs wrung from the depths of her innermost being. Throughout the tumult, a still, small voice whispered one word to her spirit: Surrender. With a mighty effort of will, she forced out the words, “Lord, I give my feelings about Daniel to You. Help me to want what’s truly best for Violet. . .no matter what it costs me.” The act of submission, of relinquishing her will to whatever her Father might ask of her, brought the awareness of victory, and with it, peace.

  She pulled her tear-soaked hands from her face, wiping them on the hem of her dress, then blotting her face with her apron. She kept to her room long after she would normally have been finished with her chores, knowing she didn’t dare let Daniel or Violet see her swollen eyes and blotchy face.

  The calm in her spirit assured her she had done the right thing. She just hoped she would be able to stay the course.

  ❧

  Daniel swung the axe high above his head, then brought it down with a loud thunk on the round of oak. He mopped his brow with his shirtsleeve. Nothing like splitting wood to work up a sweat, even at the end of October. Watching the mound of firewood grow filled him with satisfaction and pride.

  He surveyed the pile of wood he’d already stacked in orderly rows. It would be enough to get the Canfield sisters through the next month or so, in his estimation. They’d need several cords more to see them through the winter. Daniel grinned. Plenty of reason for him to stick around awhile longer.

  After that, he needed to hitch up the plow and turn the fields under before the ground froze solid. And after that, there would be plenty of other things a man could turn his hand to. He chuckled. Even with the crop finally harvested and delivered to market, there would be work enough to keep him there for months. He’d make sure of that, even if he had to create more jobs.

  In his book, Violet deserved a prize for wisdom beyond her years. “Don’t you dare leave once the crop is in,” she’d admonished him, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “Spend as much time here as you can. If you’re always around, she can’t help but take notice of you.”

  Sound advice, he’d thought, and it seemed to be having an effect. He had noticed a definite softening in Rachel’s attitude toward him over the past couple of weeks. If time would further his cause, he could stick it out however long it took.

  He fetched the crosscut saw from its peg in the barn and set off to drop some more trees.

  twelve

  Rachel took special pains to compliment Violet on her supper of venison and potatoes. Once the dishes had been cleared away, she sat at the table and spread open her ledger. Before she wrote down the first number, she closed her eyes and sent up a quick prayer. It had been some time since she’d last totaled up the figures. Surely after all their hard work, she must be near the three hundred dollar goal.

  She opened her eyes and set pen to paper, copying the notes she’d jotted on scraps of paper to remind her how much she’d brought in and for what. The column of figures grew.

  Daniel sat in his favorite chair, feeding an occasional stick of wood to the fire. Violet, curled up on the hearth rug, snuggled three kittens on her lap. Rachel envied the cozy domestic scene and wished she could be more a part of it. Suppressing a sigh of longing, she rubbed her eyes with her thumb and forefinger and returned to her list of numbers.

  Violet handed Daniel their father’s Bible with a wistful smile. “Would you mind? Pa used to read from it in the even-ings. I miss it.”

  Another thing she’d failed to keep up with. Rachel fought off the whispers of guilt and strained to hear Daniel’s voice read from God’s Word. For several moments, silence reigned, broken only by the sounds of her pen moving down the column in her ledger and Daniel flipping through the well-worn pages.

  At last he cleared his throat. “ ‘Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on. The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment.’ ”

  He paused a moment, then went on. “ ‘Consider the ravens; for they neither sow nor reap, which neither have storehouse nor barn, and God feedeth them; how much more are ye better than the fowls?’ ”

  Rachel’s heart rejoiced at the comforting words. Being reminded that God really did care for her renewed confidence that He would come to their aid.

  “ ‘Your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things.’ ”

  She jotted down the last figure, then went back to the top of the column and began adding. Her brow knitted, and her stomach tightened into a knot. Two hundred and thirty-seven dollars. How could that be? She went back again, marking each subtotal on a separate piece of paper to be sure she hadn’t made an error in addition.

  She hadn’t. She stared at the inadequate total. It still came out to two hundred and thirty-seven dollars. Rachel dropped her pen to the table and cradled her forehead in her hands. With the income from their hard-won harvest, the vegetables, and the eggs, they still fell far short of the amount they needed.

  It didn’t seem possible, yet the figures didn’t lie. They had worked like troopers and done their best. And even so, the goal eluded them. Now they had no prospect of anything to sell save eggs and only six weeks to go until they reached the fateful time limit. Despite her best efforts, she had failed.

  A soft moan escaped her lips. Would she and Violet really be tur
ned out into the world alone and penniless, and in the middle of winter? She rose and made her way to join the others and sank into her rocking chair. Right now, she only felt numb. How long would that blessed numbness last be-fore bitter reality set in?

  She pressed her lips together to mask her distress. Both Daniel and Violet had their laps full of kittens. The little four-week-old balls of fur cavorted in wild abandon.

  Violet laughed, enchanted by their antics, and Daniel smiled indulgently. “Try this,” Violet said, reaching into the sewing box for two lengths of yarn. She handed one to Daniel and kept the other for herself. They dangled the strands above the kittens’ heads, chortling when the little animals leaped at their targets.

  Rachel rocked steadily, trying to distance her emotions from the happy group. She couldn’t afford to become attached to Molly’s babies. They might grow to depend on her, and she would only let them down too.

  “Do you want to hold one?”

  Rachel glanced down to see Violet offering her a gray-and-white kitten. “No.” She saw Violet’s look of disappointment and forced a smile. “I think I’ll just sit and rock for a bit.”

  Violet nodded and resumed her game. Daniel set his little playmates on the floor, then stood and stretched. “Time for me to leave,” he said. “We’ve all put in a good day’s work. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Rachel only nodded and let Violet see him out and pull the latch string in for the night. She watched her sister stow the kittens with their mother in the dynamite box, formerly the home of the injured squirrel, and stoke the fire.

  “Coming to bed?” Violet inquired, reaching to turn down the wick on the last lamp.

  Rachel shook her head. “Go ahead. I’ll be along after awhile.” She listened to the sound of Violet’s footsteps going to her room and heard the door close. Minutes later, the faint rustle of her mattress carried down the hall. Then the streak of light under her sister’s door vanished, leaving Rachel alone with her thoughts.