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- Herausgeber: WS
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Serie: Walton Valley
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
She's unmarried and pregnant, he's the preacher who's building his cabin right next door to her! Can Hannah & Luke make peace with their differences to find their happy ever after?
Hannah Fairchild ran away from her abusive guardians with her sister. Together they've settled in a fledgling community in the middle of the Kansas prairie. The isolation suited Hannah just fine...until a preacher moved in next door.
Being a preacher isn't just a vocation to Luke Johnson - it's who he is. He's determined to restore Hannah's faith...if only he could persuade her not to walk off every time she sees him!
When circumstances contrive to throw them together, can Luke heal the pain of Hannah's past and claim the heart of His Unexpected Bride?
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The Preacher's Unexpected Bride
Walton Valley Book 2
Catherine Kennedy
Copyright © 2021 by Catherine Kennedy
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance of fictional characters to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in critical articles or a book review.
Editor: Sara Miller/Arnetta Jackson
Cover Design: Hannah Linder Designs
Contents
The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.
—Psalms 34:18
Chapter One
August 1868 – Walton Valley, Kansas
“What do you think you’re doing?” Hannah Fairchild demanded.
Luke Johnson swept his hat from his head and put down the mallet he was using to hammer a stake into the Kansas prairie. “Staking my claim.”
It was a silly question. She could see for herself what he was doing. The question was: why? Or, more precisely: why there, on the land next to her home? “Here?”
He met her hostile glare unflinchingly. “Yes, ma’am.”
Hannah swept a hand in front of her, encompassing the land as far as she could see in every direction. “There’s available land all over the west.”
He raised an eyebrow at her tone, then smiled. “I like Walton Valley.”
She swallowed down the childish retort that sat on the tip of her tongue, begging to be spoken out loud. Walton Valley doesn’t like you. Of course, that was a complete lie. Everyone in the tiny settlement loved the traveling preacher.
Staking a land claim seemed contrary to Luke’s self-professed vocation. Hannah tried again. “How can you farm your land if you’re always away preaching God’s word?”
“I want a home of my own,” Luke responded evenly. “I don’t know if I’ll farm yet. As you say, I travel frequently.”
He still hadn’t actually answered the question she’d asked in three different ways. Hannah racked her brain to find a different way to ask it—one that might lead him to be honest about why he was moving in next door.
The strange feeling she’d been experiencing over the last few days came over her, and she gasped. Hannah rested a hand on her growing belly. It wasn’t a painful sensation, just unusual. She had spoken to George about it, and the other woman had patted her hand and assured her it was quite normal. The fluttering was her baby moving inside her.
Luke stepped forward. “Miss Fairchild, are you alright?”
Hannah stared at him, anger at her situation boiling over. “I’m having a baby. Of course I’m not alright.”
The preacher’s cheeks reddened. “No. I’m sorry.”
She immediately felt contrite. It wasn’t his fault she was angry at what had happened to her, and he had done nothing wrong. He was simply showing her concern. “There are no prayers you can share that will make this go away.”
“You wish your child away?” he asked, shock replacing embarrassment on his handsome face.
Hannah lifted a shoulder. “I love my baby.”
“But not the conception or the predicament it has placed you in,” he said in quiet understanding.
She lifted her chin. “No one has yet sought to judge me.”
“And no one should,” Luke agreed. “What happened to you was an abomination.”
Hannah blinked at the vehemence in his tone. There had been a time when she first arrived at Walton Valley and met the preacher, that she was aware of a certain light in his eyes when he looked her way. She wasn’t so innocent, even before her uncle assaulted her, that she did not know what that meant.
Back then he had been sweet on her. Now he knew the truth. She was the object of his pity. Her stomach told its own story of the sin committed against her. Whether it was her fault did not matter. She was the one who would bear the shame.
It meant that good men, ones like Luke, would not give her a second glance. Frustration at the injustice did not stop Hannah from directing her resentment at him.
“Yet I am the one who will pay for the rest of my life.”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t have to be that way.”
“Yes, it does.” Hannah looked away. “Whether more people come to settle here in Walton Valley, or I meet someone elsewhere, I will either have to lie about my past or tell the truth and risk both myself and my child being rejected.”
“No one should judge you harshly . . .”
“You’ve already said that,” she said hotly. “We both know how people are. They will question my morals and my child will be treated differently because of the circumstances around its birth.”
“It’s so unfair.” Luke twirled his hat in his hands. “The Bible doesn’t teach such harsh judgments, especially toward innocents.”
“Yes, your Jesus loved everyone, didn’t he?” she asked, her voice low and mocking. “Even my uncle.”
Luke opened his mouth as though to answer and then closed it again. “The Bible is clear on God’s stance on criminals. In Romans we are told ‘avenge not yourselves, but rather give place to wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.’”
Hannah tilted her head to one side. “I can’t take revenge on my uncle, even if I wanted to. He is in prison.”
“For another offense,” Luke said. “Even if he never receives just punishment in this life, God will see that he is judged for his sins in the next.”
And therein lay her problem. She didn’t want her Uncle Phillip to wait until his death to receive a penalty for his actions—she wanted him to suffer for his crime now. That made her a poor Christian and nothing Luke said to her would make her believe differently. The book of Matthew encouraged a person to turn the other cheek, but that wasn’t something she could do. Not when the pit of her stomach burned with the injustice of her uncle’s actions.
At first it had devastated her beyond words, but that was compounded when she realized she was to bear a child. As her misery had faded, it was replaced with a white-hot fury that she could not extinguish.
“I don’t know that I believe in a God who allows such wickedness in His world,” Hannah said, the words tumbling out of her mouth.
“I can understand why you would think that way.” Luke gazed at her, and Hannah tried not to notice how his dark eyelashes curled upwards and framed his blue eyes. “All I can tell you is that He gave every person the ability to choose his or her actions. God will not control an individual’s behavior.”
It was an argument her sister, Eliza, had used several times. It didn’t change how she felt. “He wasn’t there when I needed Him.”
“Hannah, do you think God let you down?”
”I know He let me down,“ she retorted. “He should’ve done something to stop Uncle Phillip.”
“I don’t believe He could do anything to stop what happened,” Luke said softly, looking at the ruts cut into the earth by countless wagon wheels as if they held the answers to every question in the universe. “But He sent your sister, and Thomas, to help you.”
Hannah could sense his discomfort, but, to his credit, he wasn’t avoiding the incredibly difficult subject. His sympathy didn’t change a thing. She was still ruined for all decent men.
***“Glad you took my advice!” Noah called as he approached them.
Luke glanced at Hannah. Her initial anger at seeing him driving stakes into the ground marking out the borders of his land had abated. He wished he could be more eloquent and help her see that blaming God for the terrible event that had shaped her life wasn’t the answer.
He knew that because he had done the same thing himself. When his own life had imploded and an outlaw shot his best friend dead, the only person Luke hated more than God was himself.
“When I heard Thomas would be away for a couple of months, I felt as though God was calling me to Walton Valley. I will farm his land while he’s away and in return, he said he will help me plow and plant my crops in the spring, should I choose to farm.”
“I suppose Eliza was aware of your plans?” Hannah asked sharply.
“You will need to speak to your sister about that,” Luke said, though he already knew the answer.
He wished he knew what it was about him that Hannah disliked so much. She didn’t look at Noah with such open hostility. In fact, she seemed very fond of the Prescott brothers, but particularly Noah.
There had been a time when he first met Hannah that he had entertained thoughts of courting her. The knowledge she was to have a child following her uncle’s abominable behavior was not the reason he had shelved his romantic contemplations. Hannah’s attitude towards him made it appear she could see right into his soul, and she’d found it severely lacking.
Luke struggled enough with the shame of his past without spending any more time than was necessary with someone who had already judged him lacking. Wanting to restore Hannah’s faith in the Lord was his vocation.
“Why would you buy land and not farm it?” Hannah wondered. “It makes no sense.”
“I want a home of my own,” Luke said, trying to keep his voice even.
Farming had been Silas’s dream, not his. When he learned Thomas was to travel back to Independence for the trial of Eliza and Hannah’s uncle, Luke had felt a sharp nudge to not only help Thomas but honor his old friend. Silas had been a good man. Luke had not.
Hannah looked pointedly into the distance. “Like I said earlier, there are acres of free land.”
Noah’s eyebrows rose in surprise at Hannah’s tone. He slapped Luke on the back. “Well, I’m glad you’re here.”
Heat bloomed in Hannah’s cheeks at Noah’s gentle rebuke, but she did not apologize for her rudeness. “Who will care for your flock while you’re here playing at pioneer and farmer?”
“Council Grove has several preachers. One of the others will continue the traveling route while I decide my future.”
“How fortunate for you to have choices and opportunities.” There was no disguising the bitterness in Hannah’s voice, and she didn’t even try. “How does a preacher afford to stake a claim anyhow?”
Luke blinked at her ability to make ‘preacher’ sound like a curse word. He wished he could tell her the truth about where his money had come from, but he couldn’t. She already hated him enough.
“I intend to be a good neighbor and help this community prosper,” he said instead.
Hannah shook her head and stalked back toward the cabin she shared with her sister Eliza and her husband, Thomas.
“She’s not usually like that,” Noah apologized. “Usually she’s very pleasant.”
“Perhaps the heat is making her uncomfortable,” Luke suggested. “She acted a little oddly earlier.”
“That was probably the baby moving.” Noah kicked at the dirt. “Eli told her it was normal at this stage of her . . . um . . . condition.”
“How are you so knowledgeable?” Luke asked, wishing the question was completely innocent and not because he felt jealous the younger man knew so much. Though why he should care about Noah’s closeness to Hannah when she seemed to detest him, he couldn’t fathom.
“Everyone here talks about things quite openly at dinner.” Noah shrugged. “It doesn’t bother me. Except talking about Hannah’s baby reminds me of what happened to her.”
“Hopefully Hannah’s uncle will receive a just punishment at his trial later this month.”
“That won’t change the situation though, will it?” Dust flew up as Noah took out his frustration on the earth.
“No, it won’t,” Luke agreed. “I wish I had a better solution for Hannah.”
His words about God judging Hannah’s uncle for his crimes were weak. She didn’t care about any reckoning Phillip Fairchild may face in the afterlife. It was as useless to her as the one her uncle would face during his trial for embezzling money from the trust fund left for Hannah and her sister by their parents. Neither outcome would change the way her life had been irrevocably altered because of Phillip’s actions.
***“Did you know the preacher was staking his claim for the land next to ours?” Hannah demanded as she strode back into the small cabin she shared with her sister Eliza and her husband Thomas.
Eliza raised an eyebrow. “Thomas mentioned Luke liked the community here and would carry out his work while we are away for Uncle Phillip’s trial.”
“Why wouldn’t you tell me that?” Hannah was aware she sounded like a petulant child, but couldn’t seem to help the frustration bubbling up inside her.
Eliza put her sewing project on her lap. “If I had known you would be cross, I would’ve said something straightaway. I know Luke isn’t your favorite person, but I hadn’t realized you were so against him.”
“I’m not against him.“ Hannah plonked down in the chair opposite Eliza.
“Ah,” Eliza said with a knowing smile. “You’re against him because he’s a man of religion.”
“It’s not that.” Hannah flapped a hand in front of her face, but it did little to shift the air enough to cool her down. “Well, it’s not just that.”
“I think you like him.”
“I cannot abide the man,” Hannah retorted.
“Why?”
“He’s insufferable.”
“What has he done that’s insufferable?”
“He has just been babbling some nonsense about how Uncle Phillip will receive a reckoning before the Lord.” Hannah shook her head. “As if that will make a difference to me.”
“It won’t change your situation,” Eliza said gently. “But surely it will give you some comfort to know that he will stay in prison where he belongs?”
“I was greatly comforted when I was first aware he had been arrested.” Hannah rested her hands on top of the swell of her belly. “But whatever sentence he receives for stealing our inheritance will not be enough.”
“Is it for us to judge him?”
“Yes!” Hannah slapped a hand on the table. “I think I have every right to judge him. My goodness, Eliza, you sound just like Luke.”
“No one is better placed than you to decide his punishment,” Eliza said in a carefully placating tone. “But that will not happen in this world.”
“So you think the same as Luke and that I should content myself knowing that God will punish Phillip as He sees fit?”
Eliza shook her head. “Content is not the right word. I can’t pretend to know how you feel. Neither can I suggest you should accept things you cannot change, but you need to find a way of dealing with your anger.”
Hannah let out a breath. “Instead of taking it out on our new neighbor, you mean?”
“Have you been doing that?”
She looked toward the open door of their cabin as if Luke would appear there if she were to be untruthful to her sister. “A little.”
“I’m certain he didn’t mean to upset you.”
“Thomas will be cross with me if he thinks I’ve upset Luke, won’t he? Especially if he has promised to do Thomas’s work when you go back to Independence.” She hated to think she may have done something that would affect her brother-in-law. If it wasn’t for him marrying Eliza and taking both sisters away from their uncle’s clutches, things could have been much worse than they were. She might not owe him her life, but she certainly owed him her sanity.
Eliza smiled. “Thomas understands your situation is difficult. The last few months have been particularly hard for you. Now you’re stuck in a new place, the weather is uncommonly warm, and you’re to have a baby. George has told me how uncomfortable that condition can be.”
Hannah didn’t miss the wistful look her sister sent toward her stomach. She didn’t mean to act so furiously, but it was impossible not to regret the loss of things she could never have because of her uncle. She must try harder not to be selfish. Eliza had done a completely selfless thing in marrying Thomas so they could leave Independence. That her hasty marriage had turned out to be a love match was a true blessing.
“I wish you didn’t have to leave for so long.” Hannah was surprised at the prick of tears behind her eyes. For months now she had known that Thomas and Eliza would leave Walton Valley at the end of the summer to travel back to Missouri for their uncle’s trial.
Eliza stood and put her sewing on the table. She moved to her sister’s side. “You can come with us.”
Hannah shook her head wildly. Her hand shook as she reached out to take Eliza’s. “I can never go back there.”
“I hate to leave you here alone.”
She smiled up at Eliza. “I won’t be by myself. George and Grace will keep me company while the men work. And, of course, little Beth. She is such a darling.”
Beth was George’s daughter. Born the day Eliza and Hannah arrived in Walton Valley, she offered a gummy smile to everyone she saw. Everyone in their little community loved the adorable baby girl, but she particularly captivated Noah.
“I think you should stay with Grace while we are away.”
“Yes. Some distance between me and Luke is an excellent idea.”
Eliza bit her lip. “I meant for your safety. I would feel happier knowing you were not alone at night. Particularly because the baby is growing as quickly as it is. If there were any other way to secure Phillip’s conviction, I would take it so I didn’t have to leave you.”
“Thomas is excited about his family arriving, too. You should be there for that, at your husband’s side. You have both done so much for me, I won’t hear of you coming home early.”
“Did Eli talk to you about the baby?” Eliza asked, returning to her seat as she spoke.
Hannah knew what George’s husband thought. Elijah Mitchell was a qualified doctor and although there wasn’t much call for his skills while their community was so small, he had already proven himself to be an extremely competent physician. “Eli is wrong, I’m not confused about the dates.”
“No, we both know only too well when the incident happened.” Eliza put the material on her lap and picked up her needle. “There were no previous occasions?”
“I think I would remember.” A tide of frustration rose inside Hannah. It didn’t seem to matter how many times she had answered both that and other similar questions.
“Eli thinks you’re much further along,” Eliza said.
“The baby must be large.” Hannah shrugged. “Eli said that feeling the baby move at this stage is normal.”
“What do either of us know about such things?” Eliza continued hemming the curtains she was making to sell at the general store in Council Grove. “Please listen to Eli and look after yourself while I am away.”
Eliza stabbed her needle into the material and did not look up. The wobble in her voice confirmed what Hannah already knew—her sister was upset.
“I promise,” Hannah breathed. “I will do whatever you ask of me.”
Chapter Two
Luke looked at Hannah as she helped Grace carry the evening meal from the cabin. He willed her to look his way so he could smile—anything to show her she had nothing to fear with him around. He couldn’t think of any other reason for her behavior toward him. People who were afraid often seemed angry or upset.
She did not glance his way. He sat on a long bench in between Noah and Josh. Grace and Hannah sat at each end.
“Perhaps you would like to say grace on your first evening as a member of our little community?” Eli suggested.
Luke smiled at the man opposite and dragged his attention away from trying to think of something to say to Hannah to engage her in conversation. “I appreciate your suggestion, thank you.”
“It’ll be real nice havin’ a preacher here every day,” Harry commented.
“Daddy, you’ve never attended church in your life. Why are you so excited Luke is here?” George asked with an indulgent smile in her father’s direction.
“Been thinkin’ on getting baptized.” He nodded at the baby in the crib resting on the hard packed dirt next to their table. “Ain’t done her no harm.”
“It would honor me to baptize you, sir.”
“Ain’t no need for formalities out here, son. I’m Harry. Not sir, or Mr. Walton, just plain old Harry.”
“Then I insist you all call me by my given name and not ‘preacher’,” Luke said. Maybe if Hannah saw him as just another member of their community, she would be more inclined to listen to him and not walk off every time she saw him approaching, as she had that day.
Harry shook his head. “Now that ain’t right. It’s like the doc here.” The old man indicated his son-in-law, Eli. “I can’t call him anything other than doc, because that’s what he is. It’s a matter of respect.”
“That’s different. Eli spent years learning how to become a doctor. I...” Luke stopped talking. No one needed to know how he came to travel from one frontier town to another, preaching the Lord’s word.
“Don’t stop there,” Hannah’s voice sounded in the evening air. “Tell us how you became a preacher. I’d love to hear that story.”
“Oh, yes!” Noah added with his usual enthusiasm. “I’d like to hear that story too.”
Luke helped himself to a serving of rabbit stew, allowing himself time to think. Telling the truth was not an option, but he could think of a way of letting his new friends know what they wanted without telling a lie. For the first twenty-two years of his life, he hadn’t always lived in a way that would make God proud. Since then, he had done whatever he thought would have made Silas proud.
“I haven’t always been a godly man,” Luke began. “In fact, as recently as a few years back, I’d completely stopped attending church services. I moved around a lot.”
“Is that why it has been important for you to preach to communities who don’t have their own church?” Josh asked.
He considered the question as he chewed a mouthful of stew. “Partly. But honestly, it wasn’t because there wasn’t a church nearby that I wasn’t attending services. It was because I thought I could get along without God. I believed I didn’t need Him.”
“Goodness,” Grace said. “How did a man such as yourself arrive at such a conclusion?”
Grace, Eli’s mother, was a refined lady who had traveled west with her son and settled in Walton Valley following Harry’s accident. Eli had refused to continue on the journey to Santa Fe, but had remained with Harry to ensure he had a full recovery. Luke didn’t know her story, but it was obvious after even a few minutes in her presence that she was much more accustomed to taking afternoon tea in the parlor of a fine house than cooking stew in a cramped cabin on the Kansas prairie.
“My best friend died,” Luke spoke past the lump that formed in his throat every time he thought of Silas. He died because of my selfishness and because I cared more about money than his safety.
“That made you turn back to God?“ Hannah asked, disbelief sounding loudly in her softly spoken words.
“It made me question the way I had been living my life,” Luke said carefully. “I quickly concluded that my life was better with God in it than not.”
“Was your friend a God-fearing fella?” Harry asked.
Silas was whatever I was.
Luke forced himself not to close his eyes and look away from the well-meaning looks of concern from the little group of settlers. The truth was Silas took his cues from Luke. If he hadn’t chosen to be in that frontier town that night, Silas wouldn’t have been there either.
“Yes, he was.” Luke pushed his plate away, no longer hungry. “Even when I wasn’t.”
“I’m mighty sorry for your loss, preacher.”
“I’m sorry we made you talk about something that causes you pain.” Noah laid a hand on Luke’s arm.
