Autumn's Angel: A Bride for All Seasons Novella
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About this ebook
It all started with an ad in a mail-order bride catalogue . . .
Luvena would be perfect for Clay if she didn’t come with kids. But kids are a deal breaker, especially in a rough-and-tumble mining town. The trouble is, there’s no money to send them back . . .
“Both heartwarming and witty, Autumn’s Angel captures the stirring allure of first love and of those moments when anything seems possible. But only if you have the courage—and faith—to risk it all.” —Tamera Alexander, USA Today best-selling author of To Whisper Her Name and A Lasting Impression
"Autumn's Angel by Robin Lee Hatcher drew me in, captured my attention and reminded me to be a woman of faith and courage. Even when life's storm clouds gather, sunshine is waiting to break through. Hatcher penned a sweet, tender, full-of-truth love story about holding on and seeing God answer." —Rachel Hauck, author of The Wedding Dress and Once Upon A Prince
"No one can tug on the heartstrings like Robin Lee Hatcher. Autumn's Angel is a wonderful story of unexpected love, and I read it in one gulp. Highly recommended!" —Colleen Coble, USA Today best-selling author of Rosemary Cottage and the Rock Harbor series
Best-selling novelist Robin Lee Hatcher is known for her heartwarming and emotionally charged stories of faith, courage, and love. She discovered her vocation after many years of reading everything she could put her hands on, including the backs of cereal boxes and ketchup bottles. Winner of the Christy, the RITA, the Carol, the Inspirational Reader's Choice, and many other awards, Robin is also a recipient of the prestigious RWA Lifetime Achievement Award. She is the author of 70 novels and novellas with over four million copies in print.
Robin enjoys being with her family, spending time in the beautiful Idaho outdoors, reading books that make her cry, and watching romantic movies. Her main hobby (when time allows) is knitting, and she has a special love for making prayer shawls. A mother and grandmother, Robin and her husband make their home on the outskirts of Boise, sharing it with Poppet, the high-maintenance Papillon, and Princess Pinky, the DC (demon cat).
Robin Lee Hatcher
Robin Lee Hatcher is the author of over 80 novels and novellas with over five million copies of her books in print. She is known for her heartwarming and emotionally charged stories of faith, courage, and love. Her numerous awards include the RITA Award, the Carol Award, the Christy Award, the HOLT Medallion, the National Reader’s Choice Award, and the Faith, Hope & Love Reader’s Choice Award. Robin is also the recipient of prestigious Lifetime Achievement Awards from both American Christian Fiction Writers and Romance Writers of America. When not writing, she enjoys being with her family, spending time in the beautiful Idaho outdoors, Bible art journaling, reading books that make her cry, watching romantic movies, and decorative planning. Robin makes her home on the outskirts of Boise, sharing it with a demanding Papillon dog and a persnickety tuxedo cat.
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Autumn's Angel - Robin Lee Hatcher
© 2013 by RobinSong, Inc.
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.
Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible. THE NEW KING JAMES VERSION. © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The Holy Bible, New Living Translation. © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. The Holy Bible, New International Version®, niv®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com.
Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.
ISBN 978-1-4016-9023-6 (ebook)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
[Novellas. Selections]
A bride for all seasons : a mail order bride collection / by Margaret Brownley, Debra Clopton, Robin Lee Hatcher, and Mary Connealy.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-4016-8853-0 (alk. paper)
1. Mail order brides—Fiction. 2. Christian fiction, American. 3. Love stories, American. I. Brownley, Margaret. And Then Came Spring. II. Clopton, Debra. An Ever After Summer. III. Hatcher, Robin Lee. Autumn’s Angel. IV. Connealy, Mary. Winter Wedding Bells.
PS648.L6B753 2013
813'.08508—dc23 2013000168
To Natasha Kern, literary agent extraordinaire!
Thanks, Natasha, for twenty-four great years. I value our professional relationship, and I treasure our personal friendship.
Contents
Glossary
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Epilogue
Reading Group Guide
An Excerpt from Winter Wedding Bells
Other Books by Robin Lee Hatcher
About the Author
Glossary of Mail-Order Bride Advertising Terms
(And What They Really Mean)
by Margaret Brownley
Eager to learn—can’t cook; can’t sew; can’t clean
Accomplished—can ride, shoot, and spit like a man
Modest dowry—poor as a church mouse
Independent means—mean face and mean disposition
Loving nature—keep her away from the ranch hands
Traditionally built—you may wish to reinforce the floors
Matrimonially inclined—working on husband number three
Maternal—has six children and one on the way
Possesses natural beauty—don’t let the false hair, cosmetic paints, or bolstered bosom scare you
Industrious—give her a dollar and she’ll figure out how to spend ten
Young looking—doesn’t look a day over sixty
And they lived happily ever after—AND THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER.
This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person.The old life is gone; a new life has begun!
2 Corinthians 5:17
nlt
Prologue
September 10, 1870
Beyond the window of the passenger car, the plains of western Nebraska lay flat, lifeless, empty. Dawn had begun to lighten the sky from black to pewter. The night was nearly over, but Luvena hadn’t slept a wink, even though exhaustion permeated every fiber of her body. And after seemingly endless days of travel, she was certain she looked as terrible as she felt—wrinkled, gritty, and bedraggled.
Elsie, her eight-year-old niece, shifted from left side to right, her head resting in Luvena’s lap. Luvena smiled as she brushed unruly hair back from the child’s face. She envied the girl. Luvena had been like that as a child, able to sleep anytime, anywhere. But no more. Not with so many responsibilities weighing on her shoulders.
Her gaze shifted to the seat opposite her where Elsie’s older brother and sister also slumbered. Lying lengthwise, Ethan, age ten, took up most of the seat, his feet hanging off the edge into the aisle. Merry, the eldest of the siblings at fourteen, was squeezed up against the wall of the coach, her head and shoulder pressed against the sooty window in the little space left for her by her brother.
Looking at the children, her heart broke once again over all they’d lost, over the end of their dreams—and over the end of her own too. Once upon a time, she’d dreamed of becoming an opera singer. A girlish, unrealistic dream most likely, but one she’d relished. Her vocal teacher had declared Luvena possessed the voice of an angel and promised that she would be a sensation if ever she performed on the stage in New York City or the capitals of Europe. Luvena had chosen to believe her—for a time. That was before her family was plunged into disgrace. These days, she rarely sang where anyone might hear and compliment her. Not even in church. It hurt too much.
Drawing a deep breath, she pushed such thoughts away. She had no time for them. In another twenty-four hours, she and her little brood of orphans would disembark in Promontory, Utah. From there they had three or four grueling days of travel by stagecoach to Boise City, the capital of Idaho Territory. And there, at last, she would meet the man she was to marry. The man who would provide a home and security for the children of her sister.
Please, God, let it be a good home. A happy home.
She glanced down at the letter in her hand. How often had she read it since leaving Massachusetts? Ten times. Twenty. Perhaps more. She could almost recite it from memory. As for the photograph he’d sent—she looked at it again—it was small and grainy, but Mr. Birch appeared clean and respectable. No beard or mustache. He wasn’t too old either. Thirty-one to her twenty-three years. And although he didn’t smile in the photograph, neither did he look disagreeable.
As long as he is good to me and kind to the children, as long as he is a Christian and has integrity, it doesn’t matter who he is or where he lives or what he looks like. I’m not marrying for love. I’m marrying because it’s the practical thing to do. The same reason hundreds of other women choose to travel west and marry complete strangers. People have been arranging marriages since almost the beginning of time. It will be all right. It will.
She closed her eyes, leaned her head against the back of the seat, and began to hum a favorite hymn, hoping the inspiring lyrics would help drive away her doubts.
Please let it be all right.
Chapter One
Clay Birch took the last bite