by Stacy Henrie
Nora Lewis left America behind when she lost everything in the Great War.
What she’ll gain in a new land is more than her heart ever imagined . . .
Please see the next page for a preview of
A Hope Remembered.
Prologue
Iowa, May 1920
Nora led the strangers into the parlor, their footsteps sounding unusually loud against the polished wood floor. Her gaze swept with approval over the tidy room and settled on the upright piano. It looked a bit forlorn without its usual sheet music or adornment. She’d removed the two photographs from off the top yesterday—one of her parents and one of herself as a young girl—in preparation for the young couple’s arrival.
“What a spacious room,” the woman said, her hand resting on her protruding belly. Her husband draped his good arm around her shoulder, the other hanging lifeless at his side. Wounded in France, he’d informed Nora in his letter of inquiry about the farm.
“Perfect for all those children we’re going to have.” He pressed a kiss to his wife’s forehead.
Nora looked away, steeling herself against the emotions their happiness provoked. If Tom Campbell had survived the Great War, this would have been their home. Tom would’ve been standing here, kissing her, and she wouldn’t be trying to sell the place.
“The kitchen is through there.” Nora forced a cheerful tone to her words she didn’t quite feel.
The couple moved past her and stepped into the large, sunny kitchen. Nora followed. She rested her hands on the back of one of the chairs. How many times had she sat here rolling dough for her mother or eating meals with her parents? While those memories had nearly been replaced by more recent ones—sitting alone, her dog Oscar lying near her feet—the ones from her childhood were still alive.
“The place comes with all the furnishings?” The young man’s eyes were trained on the icebox. Nora recalled the day her father had brought it home in the wagon—a birthday gift for her mother.
“Yes.”
“You don’t want to take any of it with you?”
Wanted to, yes, Nora thought, but it wasn’t possible. “The place I’m moving to in England is also furnished.”
The young man turned to look at her. “England, huh? Heard things haven’t been good there since before the war. I would’ve thought more of them would be coming here, than anyone going there.”
“I inherited some property.”
“A big manor house, huh?” He chuckled. “I met a bunch of those rich Brits overseas. Decent guys, though most of them never worked a day in their lives before the war.”
Nora watched his wife fingering the red-checked curtains over the window. She’d helped her mother sew those a few years back. “It isn’t a house, actually. It’s a cottage—on a sheep farm.”
“Can we see the upstairs?” his wife asked, eagerness in her voice.
“Of course.” Nora motioned them ahead of her, back into the parlor. “There are three bedrooms.”
The couple started up the stairs, but Nora paused, her foot on the first step. Did she want to stand by while the two of them, nice as they were, looked at and touched the things that had once been her parents? The things that were hers but wouldn’t fit into her suitcase?
“Take all the time you need,” she called up to them. “I’ll be outside.”
She slipped out the front door. The slam of the screen behind her was a comforting and familiar sound. Nora moved down the porch steps and across the yard. Oscar trotted up to her side, his tail wagging. She stopped to rub the soft, brown fur between his ears, wishing she could take him with her. The old hound dog would detest being cooped up on a ship, though, and Tom’s younger brothers had already consented to taking care of him.
Nora crossed the road running in front of the farm and slipped beneath the shady limbs of the giant, oak tree that stood like a sentinel before the fields. Oscar moved off to explore the nearby brush.
For the first time since the couple had arrived, Nora felt like she could breathe normally. She circled the trunk to look at the heart Tom had carved into the bark years earlier. Lifting her finger, she traced the smooth, weathered outlines of the heart shape and the letters whittled inside: TC + NL.
Tom had kissed her for the first time under these leafy branches. She’d bid him goodbye in the same place, the day before he and his brother Joel had left to fight in the war. This tree had also been privy to Tom’s promise to marry her when he came back and Nora’s anguish when she’d received word he wasn’t returning.
She lowered her hand to her skirt pocket and removed the envelope tucked there. She’d memorized every word—about her being the next of kin to inherit Henry Lewis’s sheep farm in England’s Lake District.
She’d nearly written her great-uncle’s solicitor back and declined the offer. She had a home and a life here. Her dearest friend Livy, Tom’s sister, lived a few hours’ drive away. What more could Nora want? Yet the idea of traveling somewhere beyond Iowa took hold in her mind and wouldn’t leave her alone.
For the next week as she milked the cow, fed the animals and tended the farm, the notion of a fresh start consumed her every waking thought until she finally relented and wrote a letter of acceptance. Only then did she feel a measure of peace.
“I don’t know anything about sheep, Tom,” she admitted in a half whisper as she smoothed the envelope containing the solicitor’s letter. “I’m not afraid, though. I need to go.” She splayed her free hand against the grooves in the bark. “I think God needs me to go.”
A movement across the street caught her eye. The couple was exiting the house. Nora pocketed the letter and stepped swiftly toward them.
“Everything’s just lovely,” the young woman said.
“We’ll take it,” her husband announced as Nora came to a stop below the porch. “How soon can we move in?”
Nora swallowed the tug of sorrow at her throat and managed a tight smile. “You can move in next Thursday. I’ll leave the key under the mat.”
They settled on a price, which was a few hundred dollars less than what Nora had asked for, but she’d expected that. After all, she could only do so much with running the place alone. The young man promised to bring the money over tomorrow morning.
“Do you have family there? In England, I mean?” The young woman allowed her husband to help her down the porch steps.
Nora shook her head. “Not anymore.” With the death of her grandfather’s brother, she no longer had any living relatives.
“Then why go?” Genuine concern shone on the other woman’s face. “If I had this place, I don’t think I could leave it for the unknown.”
Nora glanced at the oak tree and the unseen heart imprinted there. This had been her home for twenty-three years—she’d never known another. So many dreams and hopes had been sown and lost here. Could she uproot herself from a comfortable existence to live in a foreign country, to work at something she knew little about? Would a life in England prove better than a life here?
Fading recollections and isolation are not much of a life, her heart reminded.
She turned her attention back to the couple. This time Nora did not need to infuse her response with feigned confidence. “I believe I’m ready for an adventure.” The words sunk deeply into her soul and sent a tingle of excitement unfurling in her stomach.
“Judging by the state of things here, Miss Lewis, I think you’ll do well on your sheep farm.” The young man extended his good hand toward her. Nora shook it firmly and offered the two of them a genuine smile. “We wish you all the best across the Pond.”
ACCLAIM FOR HOPE AT DAWN
“Readers seeking enlightening historical detail or a comforting story in which faith and rectitude overcome bigotry will be entertained.”
—Publishers Weekly
“I very much enjoyed the book because of the subject matter and because of the way it was written.”
—Romance.NightOwlReviews.com
“The author magnificently captures the Zeitgeist, the spirit of the time, how people really thought and behaved in that era, and how prejudice affects every life it touches . . . Hope at Dawn was a wonderful discovery . . . I highly recommend it.”
—FreshFiction.com
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Author’s Note
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
About the Author
A Preview of A Hope Remembered
Acclaim for Hope at Dawn
Fall in Love with Forever Romance
Newsletters
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Stacy Henrie
Excerpt from A Hope Remembered copyright © 2014 by Stacy Henrie
Cover image copyright © Karolina Kumorek/Trevillion Images, design by Diane Luger
Cover copyright © 2014 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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ISBN 978-1-4555-9882-3
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