The Shepherd's Heart Series: A Boxed Set Book Bundle Collection Volumes 1-4 Read online

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  Epilogue

  Prologue

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  Prologue

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  Prologue

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  by Lynnette Bonner

  Rocky Mountain Oasis, THE SHEPHERD’S HEART SERIES, Book 1

  Published by Serene Lake Publishing

  Copyright © 2009, 2012 by Lynnette Bonner. All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Lynnette Bonner of Indie Cover Design - www.indiecoverdesign.com

  Cover images ©

  www.bigstock.com, File: # 50282366

  www.bigstock.com, File: # 2223441

  Author photo © Emily Hinderman, EMH Photography.

  Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  Rocky Mountain Oasis is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. All other characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination.

  Printed in the U.S.A.

  Books Available from Lynnette Bonner

  THE SHEPHERD'S HEART SERIES

  — Christian Historical Romance —

  Rocky Mountain Oasis — Also available in audio

  High Desert Haven — Also available in audio

  Fair Valley Refuge — Also available in audio

  Spring Meadow Sanctuary — Also available in audio

  PACIFIC SHORES SERIES

  — Contemporary Christian Romance —

  Beyond the Waves, Book 1 — Also available in audio

  Caught in the Current, Book 2 — Also available in audio

  Song of the Surf, Book 3 — Also available in audio

  Written in the Sand, Book 4 — Also available in audio

  ISLANDS OF INTRIGUE: SAN JUANS

  — Christian Romantic Suspense —

  The Unrelenting Tide — Lynnette Bonner — Also available in audio

  Tide Will Tell — Lesley Ann McDaniel

  Deceptive Tide — Janalyn Voigt

  HEART'S OF HOLLYWOOD SERIES

  — Contemporary Christian Romance Novellas —

  My Blue Havyn

  Mistletoe & Mochas

  The

  SONNETS OF THE SPICE ISLE SERIES

  is a serialized historical Christian romance novel

  Episode order:

  — Find All the Episodes Here —

  On the Wings of a Whisper, Episode 1

  Lay Down Your Heart, Episode 2

  Made Perfect in Weakness, Episode 3

  A Walk Through the Waters, Episode 4

  The Trail of Chains, Episode 5

  …and More Coming Soon!

  — To be notified as each episode releases, sign up here —

  Find out more at LynnetteBonner.com

  Psalm 23

  A PSALM OF DAVID

  The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

  He makes me to lie down in green pastures;

  He leads me beside the still waters.

  He restores my soul;

  He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake.

  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil;

  For You are with me;

  Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

  You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

  You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over.

  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life;

  And I will dwell in the house of the Lord Forever.

  TO MARTY

  Words are not enough to express my love and respect for you. You encourage me at every turn and remind me to focus on the One who continually blesses us. I love you!

  TO CASTLE, CALEB, TYRELL, AND SKYE

  I thank God for each of you. You are such a blessing to me! I pray that you will grow to love the Lord God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, and that you will learn to love your neighbor as yourself. I look forward to many more years of watching each of you develop and mature into all that God has planned for you. I love you!

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This book would not be what it is today without the invaluable editing of my mom. She spent hours poring over the manuscript until I teased her that I’d have to buy stock in the red pen market. Thank you, Mama, for all you do!

  The historical details for this story came from two main sources: A little book called And Five Were Hanged: And Other Historical Short Stories of Pierce and the Oro Fino Mining District by Layne Gellner Spencer and the University of Idaho’s historical archives. If any historic facts are muddled, the fault is entirely mine.

  1

  Lewiston, Idaho Territory

  August 1885

  Brooke Marie Baker pressed a hand to her thumping heart and forced herself to breathe normally as she walked into town beside the last wagon of the caravan. Whether she wanted to be here or not, they had arrived. Six months of grueling travel across rugged prairies and mountain passes. Aching back. Aching feet. Oppressive heat and little to eat. Yet she’d be willing to travel on forever if it meant she didn’t have to be here. Didn’t have to give up her freedom.

  This morning Harry had said they would arrive in Lewiston today, but she had hoped something would delay the inevitable.

  The weathered facades of the clapboard houses she walked past and the monotonous creak of the wagon wheels turning over the graveled street proved her hope had been futile.

  Along both sides of the road, as they turned onto the main street, people stopped to stare. Brooke didn’t meet their gazes but kept her perusal focused on the buildings. R
eal buildings with boardwalks, stairs, and windows. The last time she’d seen boardwalks had been three months ago at Fort Laramie.

  Ahead, someone let out a loud whoop of joy.

  She looked down the line of bonnet-topped Conestogas.

  The first wagons had come to a stop, and apparently the gathered crowd had been anxiously awaiting their arrival. Toward the front of the throng, a cluster of men stood, studying the caravan expectantly.

  Almost all of them had long, tobacco-stained beards. Not one looked like he was under fifty-five, and several had no compunctions about scratching themselves in public. One man, thick black suspenders holding up his baggy pants, ogled Brooke from head to toe. Then, still scrutinizing her, he leaned to one side and spat a stream of tobacco.

  She felt a familiar quiver of fear and glanced away, offering the man no challenge.

  “Let’s get on with the marryin’,” a deep voice toward the back shouted. “I got plenty o’ work waitin’ for me back ta home.” A loud grumble of agreement followed.

  An older man scratched at his beard and complained, “You all was supposed to be here two days ago.”

  “Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” Harry’s spurs jangled as he jumped to the ground from his position in the lead wagon. He was using his let’s-stay-calm tone—the same one he’d used when Emily Donaldson had discovered the much-too-friendly beaver in the bathing hole back on the Platte and every last woman had rushed screaming from the water. “Give me a moment to gather your brides, and then we can proceed.”

  The grumblings ceased and, apparently satisfied the men had gotten his message, Harry turned and strode Brooke’s way, thumbs hooked into his large silver belt-buckle. “Come on, ladies. Everybody circle up. We’re here.” His familiar rap-rap as he knocked on the side of the first wagon resounded down the street.

  Her stomach threatened to empty right there in front of God and everyone. She stepped back behind the tailgate, drew in a long breath, held it, and eased it out between pursed lips. Pushing aside memories of days gone by, she forced her shoulders to relax. While she dared not hope that things would be different this time, neither did she want her nervousness to be apparent.

  Rap-rap. He’d reached the second wagon. Only four more to go.

  She took another breath and released it on a low whisper. “You can do this. Calm down.”

  A moment later he peered around the end of the wagon. “Brooke? I need everyone to meet up front, please. The men have a minister here already.”

  “I know.” The words emerged on a squeak, and she pressed moist palms together, rubbing them in circles.

  Harry gave her a sympathetic look. “You don’t have anything to worry about. I’m real careful to make sure all the men are honest, upstanding citizens.”

  Emily Donaldson rounded the wagon, her red-painted lips puckered in aggravation and one dark eyebrow arched. “Comforting, I’m sure, Harry, for a young girl like her.” She pierced the wagon-master with a glare.

  If only Emily knew. But she didn’t. None of them knew anything about her or the real reason she was here.

  Harry snorted and stalked off, grousing, “Just be up front in five minutes. And best you follow instructions this time, Emily Donaldson!”

  Emily huffed. “What do men know?” She put an arm around Brooke and rested one cheek on the top of her head. “Come on, now.” She gave Brooke a gentle squeeze. “No use us trying to postpone the inevitable.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” Brooke trailed after her past the row of wagons, feeling sweat trickle down her back.

  All the women gathered on one side of the street under the overhang in front of the bank. The men clustered across the way, looking them over like meat on a market table.

  She swallowed down the burn pressing at the back of her throat. Of course she hadn’t expected anything better. She pressed the sleeve of her dress to the beads of moisture dotting her forehead. If it wasn’t so hot, this might be easier to face.

  The minister in the dusty street between the two groups raised his arms for silence. “All right, listen up now. To make this as efficient as possible, I will call forward each man. He will present me with his documents, and then I will call forward one of you women and we’ll have a ceremony for that couple, then move on to the next one. My wife and Mr. Preston here—” he glanced over his shoulder at a plump woman and a frowning man standing off to one side, “have agreed to be witnesses, and the hotel down the street has prepared a special meal for the occasion.”

  A chorus of appreciation rose from the men. The women remained silent. Only one or two even shuffled their feet.

  “Oh and one more thing.” The minister again gestured for everyone’s attention. “Is there a Miss, ah—” he patted several pockets then finally pulled a paper from the one in his shirt and consulted it—“Brooke Baker, here?”

  Brooke blinked in surprise. Could this be a reprieve? Maybe the man Uncle Jackson had pledged her to had died or changed his mind. She stepped forward.

  But Harry spoke before she could find her voice. “Yeah, she’s here. What do you need with her?”

  The minister peered at her over the top of his spectacles. “Miss Baker?”

  Mouth dry, she nodded.

  “Your intended has asked that I escort you by stage to a town about half a day’s ride from here called Greer’s Ferry. So you won’t meet him until tomorrow.”

  Brooke’s knees nearly gave out in relief, but by some miracle she stayed on her feet. “Oh, thank you, sir.” Heat rose up from her collar and into her face. She’d sounded a trifle too gleeful.

  Easing to the back of the crowd, she relaxed against the building’s warm brick and tucked her trembling hands behind her. Her eyes dropped closed, and she tilted her face to the sun.

  One more day. One more day of freedom.

  Pierce City, Idaho Territory

  August 1885

  Evening shadows stretched long as Sky Jordan placed the last of the supplies onto his pack mule. The leather of the packs creaked as he settled them into place, cinched them down, and made sure everything was in proper order. He stood in front of Fraser’s Mercantile, scratching the mule behind its long gray ears, surveying Main Street.

  A lone pine tree grew in the middle of the dusty street at the south end of town, its shadow falling due east. Summer crickets chirped lustily from the bushes nearby, and he could hear the occasional tink of bottle on shot glass emanating from Roo’s Saloon across the street.

  From an upper-story window in the Joss house, a Chinese woman emptied a pail of water onto the street, splattering mud on Gaffney’s Pioneer Hotel next door and leaving a small muddy patch in the alley between the buildings.

  “Sky! You comin’ in here? Food’s gonna be cold ‘fore you ever set down to table!”

  A rough gravelly voice interrupted his perusal of the town. He glanced up at the friendly, round face of Jed Swanson, who leaned over the rail in front of his boarding house.

  “Food ain’t gonna be fit for hogs if’n you don’t get in here,” Jed complained, rubbing a plump hand down the front of his greasy, apron-clad belly.

  A smile stretched Sky’s face. Jed’s food always fell somewhere between burlap and leather, but Jed invariably claimed that was because it had been left sitting too long.

  “Your food? Fit for Hogs?” Sky taunted, unable to pass up the opportunity to tease his old friend.

  “Hmmph!” Jed shook his wooden spoon at Sky. “Mind your manners, or you won’t be gettin’ any o’ my fine fixins.” He turned away, slamming the door as he went inside.

  Sky gave the mule a friendly slap on the neck, left it tied to the rail, then trooped wearily up the steps to Jed’s boarding house, the building next door to Fraser’s Mercantile.

  The rough wooden door opened on squeaking hinges as he entered. He hooked his black Stetson on a peg in the wall and scanned the room.

  The only light in the gloomy confines of the rugged log building emanated from a small oil lamp s
et in the middle of the dining table and a brightly burning fire in the fireplace on the back wall. The stone and mortar hearth, stacked high with logs on one side, held the wrought-iron hook by which the coffee pot could be swung into the heat of the fire. Off to the left, on the back wall, he could see the dark shadow of the doorway that led to the rooms Jed rented out.

  Sky turned to his right. Several men were already seated around the coarse plank table, shoveling food into their mouths as though it might disappear before their eyes, their forks clanking loudly against tin plates. His interest piqued as he noticed his cousin, Jason, sitting in the dim light at the end of the table, his back to the wall. A hefty man with unwashed blond curls covering his head, Jason looked as surly as ever. His large belly, the result of his love of beer, protruded over his huge silver belt buckle, bumping the table.

  Sky sauntered casually to an empty chair, sat down with his back to the room, and began to serve his plate, listening to the conversation around him.

  Fraser was speaking. “This boy is a lunatic, I tell you, and he wants to court my Alice. She’s only fifteen, and I sent her down to Lewiston to get an education, not to court boys. So I told him straight out, when I was down to Lewiston last, that he had better stay away from her. Now, with her being over seventy-five miles from here, that in itself wouldn’t give me a whole lot of comfort, since I wouldn’t trust that boy as far as I could throw him. But I also told Judge Rand that the boy was not to come around anymore, and if anyone will make sure he don’t, it’ll be the judge.”

  Sky’s mind wandered to his little sister back home as he added a spoonful of greens to his plate. Wonder if boys are coming to call on Sharyah already? She was about the same age as Alice Fraser. He smiled to himself. Knowing Sharyah and her blond curls and beautiful sunny smile, the boys were lined up for a mile outside of the little white farmhouse back in Shilo. Dad’s probably going through the same thing as Fraser.

  Jed slurped his coffee noisily. “Judge Rand be a good man. Speakin’ o’ which, I hear tell Lee Chang is up to his ol’ tricks again. Nigh on got hisself killed by a trader that came through the other day, way I hear it. ‘Cept Chang’s goons came to his rescue and ran the feller out of town. He tried to pay the man with some o’ that bogus gold he’s gettin’ a reputation fer usin’.” Jed shook his head. “Someone ought to take Chang to court. The judge would see to him, sure ‘nuff.”