Love Inspired August 2014 – Bundle 1 of 2 (20 page)

Dear Reader,

Our God is the God of second chances. Sometimes they
come unexpectedly, the silver lining within a cloud of regret.

Livvie’s story struck home. I can see a young woman, denied the
relationship she thought she’d have, working to rebuild her life according to
plan. And how devastating it must feel when that plan runs amok! But it wasn’t
coincidence that brought her home at this time, or brought her grandfather’s
condition to light. God’s timing isn’t always convenient, but if we grab the
offered opportunities, it’s amazing how things work out.

And Jack? Denied the career he worked for, then losing his
mother, he came back home to an amazing heritage. But it took him a while to
shake off that anger, the yearning for control.

We’re such funny creatures. We want to take charge, but we
forget that not everything is in our control. For me, that’s when the Serenity
Prayer grabs hold. “Dear Lord, Grant me the courage to change the things I can,
the patience to accept the things I cannot change and the wisdom to know the
difference.” Simple words. Beautiful guidelines!

I lost my father-in-law to Alzheimer’s in 2012 after a long,
debilitating illness. It was heartbreaking to see this kindly man suffer the
indignities of a mind-numbing disease, but you know what? His family rose to
the
occasion and became my models for the Franklins in this book. Seeing my
mother-in-law’s dedicated care, we glimpsed her strength and faith
firsthand.

I enjoyed writing this story, delving into Big Sky country! I
love hearing from readers. Contact me at
[email protected]
,
friend
me on Facebook at Ruth Logan Herne, come cook with me at
www.yankeebellecafe.blogspot.com
and access my website,
ruthloganherne.com
.
I enjoy
chatting with folks, sharing stories and prayers! God bless you and thanks so
much for reading
His Montana Sweetheart!

Ruthy

Questions for
Discussion

1. Coming “home” isn’t always easy. For some
   it’s a walk down memory lane. For others, it’s more like walking the plank.
   Are there people in your family who might cringe at coming home? What can we
   do to ease their return?
   
2. When his college injury made Major League
   Baseball an impossible dream, Jack shrugged off everything that might remind
   him of the dream he lost, including Olivia. Have you ever made a “thing” or
   goal so important that it blinded you to the worthiness of the rest of your
   life?
   
3. Jack believes in God but isn’t sure what
   role God really plays in life. The new preacher’s words touch Jack’s heart
   and bring him closer to the roots of his faith. Ethan’s arrival in town, the
   centennial celebrations and Liv’s return all coincide to bring Jack to his
   destiny. Do you believe in God’s timing? Has it manifested itself in your
   life?
   
4. Liv embraced a lifestyle just as segregated
   as Jack’s. She rarely visited home, she didn’t see her grandparents, and
   immersed herself in her own life and work. Her grandfather’s worsening
   battle with Alzheimer’s is a wake-up call for Livvie. Guilt reminds her that
   a selfish existence is really no existence at all. Do you think that guilt
   can be a helpful tool, guiding us to become better people?
   
5. Adopting the neglected horse is a big step
   forward for Livvie and Jack. She’ll need to come to the ranch—a place rife
   with memories, a place she loves—to take care of Dilly. Her commitment gives
   her the excuse she’s longing for, a chance to be with Jack again, on the
   ranch. Do you say yes to the possibilities life offers often enough? Or do
   you let apprehension steer you away?
   
6. Jasper Gulch is its own conundrum. Some
   folks want to move forward while some cling to the past, avoiding change
   purposely. In a small town, this can become a harsh duel. What methods would
   you recommend to entice a town to work together? And do you think the
   centennial celebrations might help do just that?
   
7. Jack’s father is falling in love. And if
   that happiness includes a new wife and two cute fatherless kids, Jack sees
   that as a triple win. But when Jack thinks he messed things up, his guilt is
   magnified. It’s not just him and his father anymore, and that raises the
   stakes. Does added responsibility make us hesitate to take chances? Is that
   a good thing?
   
8. The arrival of Liv’s grandparents changes
   her family dynamic. Then, when Liv sees her lack of time investment in the
   past, she’s realizing her choices weren’t made of faith and emotion but
   convenience. Her grandmother’s wisdom reminds her that everyone has regrets
   on the path of life. What’s the best way to push beyond those old regrets
   into a new tomorrow?
   
9. Grandma’s not happy with the turns her life
   has taken, but when she withdraws a beautiful piece, created for an event
   that no longer existed, the knitters see beyond her snippiness. Her words
   paint a picture of a life changed, through no fault of her own, and their
   sympathy takes hold. How can we be helpful to people dealing with the trauma
   of aging and disease?
   
10. Liv is ready and willing to make a
    commitment to Jack and Jasper Gulch, but when Jack pulls back, she’s
    reminded of their broken dreams from college. The growth of her faith has
    helped her to see her own part in the problems. Jack’s actions spawn Liv’s
    reaction and she’s not afraid to give Jack a wake-up call. Does your faith
    in God help you to be honest in your relationships?
    
11. When Jack reveals the “team” shirts he
    ordered, with a ribbon marking Alzheimer’s awareness, Liv’s heart is
    touched. Jack’s respect for the elderly makes Liv realize how much she loves
    him. His action reflects the love and respect her grandmother shows her
    ailing grandfather, the kind of love that lasts a lifetime. Do you have
    examples of this kind of love in your family? If not, how do you grasp hold
    of your own personal “happily ever after”?
    

We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Love Inspired story.

You believe hearts can heal.
Love Inspired
stories show that faith, forgiveness and hope have the power to lift spirits and change
lives—always.

Enjoy six new stories from Love Inspired every month!

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Chapter One

E
than Gingerich led his draft horses out of their stalls and started to slide open
the large door of his barn, but he stopped when he saw two irate women standing just
outside. At second glance, only the one gripping his nephew Micah’s collar looked
irate. It was Faith Lapp, his neighbor’s wife. He didn’t recognize the pretty young
woman standing behind Faith. She looked scared. Her bright blue eyes were wide with
apprehension.

Faith pointed to the child in her grasp. “Ethan Gingerich, do you know what your boy
has done?”

He’d never seen the mild-mannered woman with such fire in her eyes. And what was that
horrible smell? It seemed to be coming from his nephew. “I reckon I’d be the one holding
him by the collar if I knew. What did you do this time,
sohn?
”

Micah glared at him. “I’m not your son.”

“That’s neither here nor there. You did something to upset Mrs. Lapp. What was it?”

Micah looked down at his bare toes. “Nothing.”

Faith let go of his shirt and gestured toward the woman standing with her. “This is
my friend Clara Barkman. Clara saw him jump out of a tree onto one of my alpacas.”

Ethan flinched. He’d heard stories about the way Faith Lapp valued her strange animals.
She treated them almost like family. How much would an alpaca cost if he had to replace
one? He could barely afford to feed the family and his horses as it was. He hadn’t
been able to go logging in weeks. Not since his brother’s children had come to live
with him over a month ago. No cut timber to sell meant zero income.

Micah raked his bare toes through the dirt. “I just wanted to ride one. I didn’t mean
any harm.”

Faith scowled at him. “They’re very delicate animals. They can’t carry a rider bigger
than a two-year-old. Had you asked permission to ride one of them, I would have told
you that. You could have seriously injured Myrtle.”

“Or you might have been injured yourself,” Clara added in a small voice.

He liked that she was thinking of the child. The recent deaths of his brother and
sister-in-law had left him in charge of their three small children. He gazed at Micah’s
belligerent face. They were still finding their way with each other. Micah was having
a much harder time than his younger brother and sister.

The boy was only eight, but he wasn’t too young to learn responsibility and respect.
“Micah will work off any damages that are owed, Mrs. Lapp. Go up to the house, boy.
We’ll talk about this later.”

Micah’s chin came up. “I’m not scared of you.”

Ethan managed to keep a stern face, but it was difficult. Micah was so much like his
father had been at that age. Always ready to scrap with his bigger, older brother.
Ethan summoned a forbidding tone. “You should be. Don’t make me tell you twice. Go!”

Micah’s defiance crumbled. He bolted toward the house. The fire in Faith Lapp’s eyes
cooled as she watched the boy race up the front porch steps. Her expression turned
to one of sympathy when she looked back at Ethan. “I know how troubled a boy can be
when he has lost his parents as Micah has. It was the same with my nephew when Kyle
first came to me. It takes time, and it takes attention to help them recover.”

Why did women always think he needed a lecture on how to manage the children? He’d
already had plenty of that from his aunts. Was he ever to have any peace? “I’ll handle
Micah in my own way. Is there anything else?”

He shoved the barn door wide open and led his team of draft horses out. Faith moved
aside, but Clara shrieked and threw up her hands as she scurried backward, almost
falling in her haste. The horses snorted and tossed their heads, jerking him off the
ground for an instant. Terror-stricken, Clara covered her face with her hands. What
was wrong with her?

He calmed his animals. “Easy, boys, easy.”

Faith wrapped her arm around Clara’s shoulders and moved her to the side. “Clara is
frightened by large horses. Would you take them away, please, Mr. Gingerich?”

“An Amish woman who is afraid of horses?” He would have laughed at the idea, but the
proof of it was cowering before him.

“Only big ones,” Clara admitted breathlessly. She had her eyes scrunched shut.

“These are big,” he acknowledged as he led them past the women to the nearby pasture
gate. He owned two teams of massive Belgians, among the largest of all draft horse
breeds. They were his most prized possessions. He loved their strength and their power,
their placid nature and their willingness to work as hard as he asked without flagging.
How could anyone be afraid of such gentle giants?

When he turned them loose in the pasture, Fred and Dutch took off at a thundering
gallop, bucking like colts and nipping playfully at each other. He never grew tired
of watching the matching sorrels with their sleek red-brown coats and blond manes
and tails. They were beautiful to behold.

But he had more than his horses to look after now. He had three
kinder
to care for. One of them was bent on getting himself into trouble at every turn.
Ethan came back to stand by Faith. Now that the horses were gone, Clara had her eyes
open. It was easy to see she was embarrassed by her reaction. Her cheeks were bright
red. Her gaze was focused on her hands clasped tightly in front of her. “I’m sorry
I made a fuss. I wasn’t expecting to see them.”

He took pity on her. “My sister-in-law would shriek at the sight of the tiniest spider
in the house. Everyone is afraid of something.”

Clara gave him a tremulous smile, a reward for his kindness. “My father’s team of
draft horses bolted and ran over me when I was six.”

“Were you badly hurt?” he asked.

The bright color was fading from her cheeks. “
Nee,
their big feet missed me by the grace of God.”

“It’s not so surprising. My teams pay close attention to where they put their hooves.
They don’t like to be tripped up. But you didn’t come to talk about horses. What kind
of damages do I owe for the injury to your animal, Mrs. Lapp?”

“Myrtle seems to be all right. She had a bad fright more than anything. She may be
skittish for a few days, but I think she’ll recover.

“You let me know if she starts ailing. I’ll send Micah to work for you for the next
three days, if that’s agreeable.”

“If you are sure you don’t need him here.”

“I can spare him for the mornings. Is that acceptable?”

Faith nodded. “
Ja,
it is. Perhaps if he learns more about alpacas, he’ll be careful around them. I’m
afraid Myrtle spit on him. It will take a few days of airing for the smell to get
out of his clothes.”

“Serves him right. I’ll see that he’s punished for what he did.”

Clara’s gaze snapped up and locked with his for an instant before she looked down
again. “He’s only a little boy.”

“He’s old enough to know better. I don’t tolerate careless or wild behavior around
my animals. He knows that. If there’s nothing else, I’ve got two more horses that
need to go out to pasture. They’re big ones, too,” he added.

Clara flinched at his remark. He regretted sounding short-tempered, but before he
could form some kind of apology, the women turned and walked away.

His eyes stayed on the gently swaying figure of Clara as she and Faith went down the
lane. Clara Barkman. He wasn’t familiar with the name. Was she a local woman? He didn’t
attend the same church group as his neighbors, so he hadn’t seen her before.

She stopped and glanced back for a moment. He raised a hand to wave. She suddenly
rushed to catch up with Faith. He watched until they rounded the bend in the road,
but she didn’t look back again. She was a pretty woman. Was she married?

He shoved aside the thought. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t interested in her or any
woman. Clara might be pretty, but a pretty face didn’t mean much. He had loved one
beautiful woman beyond all reason. She said that she loved him, too, but she had married
another man. A man he had introduced her to... His best friend. Their betrayal of
his trust cut deep. He didn’t know if it would ever heal although he tried his best
to forgive them.

Jenny’s beautiful face hid a selfish nature. She decided not to settle for a poor
fellow with only his horses and his heart to offer her. She wanted a secure life.
She found it with a man who owned a big house and his own factory. An
Englisch
man. That she had to turn her back on her Amish faith hadn’t deterred her any more
than it had kept his mother from leaving.

Ethan rubbed his hand over his chest, but it didn’t lessen the ache those memories
caused.

He returned to the barn and brought Rosie and Golda out. After checking them over,
he turned them loose in the pasture, too. Golda took off at a gallop to catch up with
the boys, but pregnant Rosie buried her nose in the long grass and began tearing up
mouthfuls near his feet. He patted her sleek shoulder. “Eat good, little
mudder.
I need a strong, healthy
hutsh
from you.”

Rosie and her colt would be the foundation of his business as a draft horse breeder
and trainer. Up until now, he’d made a living by logging, but with the addition of
the children in his life, he needed a way to earn a living that didn’t take him away
from home for much of the fall and early winter. It was his new plan for the future,
but he knew God had a way of changing a man’s plans without warning.

He settled his hat lower on his brow as he glanced toward the house, where Micah was
waiting for him. He’d never expected to raise his niece and nephews. He drew comfort
from knowing he was doing what his brother would have wanted, but he hadn’t realized
how hard it would be. For everyone.

What could he say to make Micah understand he was traveling down the wrong path? Ethan
looked up at the cloudless blue sky. “God, I don’t know why You needed my brother
and his wife with You, but we sure do miss them. If You want me to look after their
kinder,
You had better show me the way to make it work, Lord, because right now I’m lost.”

He shook off the sadness that made his eyes sting. He wouldn’t dwell on his loss.
He couldn’t afford to let grief muddle his thinking. Work would help clear his head.

He turned away from the house and entered the barn. Micah could stew a few minutes.
Grabbing a pitchfork, he began tossing fresh straw into the stalls. He needed to find
the right thing to say to Micah. More important, he needed to find a way to take care
of all the children that didn’t involve sending them to live with their only other
family members.

Ethan refused to consider sending them to his mother. She had given up her Amish faith
and any right to be considered part of the family when she left his father. Ethan
did have two elderly aunts willing to take one child each, but they wanted to leave
Micah with him. He couldn’t do that to them.

Separating the
kinder
was something he knew his brother wouldn’t want. Not after the way they had been
torn apart as children.

* * *

Clara resisted the urge to glance over her shoulder again as she and Faith walked
away from Ethan’s home. What kind of punishment did he have planned for Micah? She
flinched at the memory of her uncle taking a strap to her back.

Like Micah, she and her sisters had been taken in by their uncle after their parents
died. Their uncle Morris was a weak, cruel man. He made their lives miserable for
years. The final straw came when he tried to force her to marry a horrible man. By
the grace of God and with the bravery of her sister Lizzie, they were able to escape.
Now they lived with their grandfather in the Amish community of Hope Springs, Ohio.
Clara tried hard to put her unhappy past behind her, but sometimes it came back to
haunt her. Like now.

She knew not every man was cruel. Faith’s husband was a wonderful, kind husband and
father, but Ethan Gingerich looked and sounded so stern. She glanced at Faith. “Do
you think Micah will be all right?”

“He wasn’t hurt in the fall. Why wouldn’t he be all right?”

Clara kept her pace slow to match Faith’s limping stride. Faith wore a brace on one
leg due to an old injury. “Did Micah’s
onkel
seem angry to you? He seemed very angry to me.”

“I could see he was disappointed in the boy’s behavior. That’s to be expected.”

“What do you know about him?”

“Not much really. He keeps to himself. He moved here about two years ago. He makes
a living logging with his horses. He lived alone until recently. One day last month,
he stopped by to ask Adrian to look after his horses while he went to Indiana for
a funeral. Apparently, his brother and his brother’s wife were struck and killed by
lightning while they were working in the field. It was a terrible tragedy. Ethan brought
their children back to live with him. I took some food to them when they first arrived.
The poor children looked so lost. I should’ve gone back to visit.”

“You’ve had your hands full with the new baby.”

“That’s true, but it’s no excuse for being a poor neighbor. I hope their church has
been helping.”

They rounded a bend in the road, and Clara couldn’t see the house behind them anymore.
A large cornfield blocked her view. The sea of green leaves and golden tassels danced
in the wind making rattling, hissing sounds as the stiff leaves slapped against each
other.

Would Ethan slap Micah?

The boy was so small, and Ethan was a big man. He could easily hurt the child. She
dreaded to think Micah was being punished because she was the one who saw him jump
on Myrtle. She had been so startled that she had immediately called Faith to the window.
If only she had remained silent. The boy would have gone home, and no one would have
known about his actions. But that wouldn’t have been right, either.

She prayed Ethan would deal with Micah kindly, but not knowing troubled her. The Amish
were gentle people. She knew that, but evil could lurk among the good. Her uncle was
proof of that. Her heart started pounding painfully as she remembered his cruelty.