When Love Comes My Way

Lori Copeland

Description

From bestselling author Lori Copeland, When Love Comes My Way is a love story about redemption, forgiveness, and renewed spiritual awakenings set against the backdrop of scenic Upper Peninsula, Michigan, in the days when pine was king.Michigan, 1873-As Tess Wakefield wakes from a frightening wagon accident, she discovers she has lost her memories. In her recovery, she loses her heart as well to handsome lumberjack Jake Lannigan. It's not a two-way street, though. Jake thinks he knows exactly who she is-the spoiled Wakefield Timber heir-but he believes the accident provides the means to show her that she has a responsibility to replant the trees and not to merely invest her inheritance opening another of her silly millinery shops.Then he slowly he begins to fall in love with her. Jake wants to tell Tess the truth, but before he can her true identity is uncovered, and then both of them find the emotional stakes too high. Will God intervene and show this headstrong couple that only He in His wisdom could have paired them together?

Sujets

• Romance
• Historical romance

Informations

• Publié par: Harvest House Publishers
• Date de parution: 01 juin 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780736942850
• Langue: English

Extrait

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS
EUGENE, OREGON
Cover by Left Coast Design, Portland, Oregon
Cover photos Shutterstock / Yuri Arcurs, Nejron Photos, Kotenko Oleksandr
Published in association with the Books Such Literary Agency, 52 Mission Circle, Suite 122, PMB 170, Santa Rosa, CA 95409-5370, www.booksandsuch.biz .
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
WHEN LOVE COMES MY WAY
Copyright 1990/2012 by Copeland, Inc. Published by Harvest House Publishers Eugene, Oregon 97402 www.harvesthousepublishers.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Copeland, Lori.
Fool me once
When love comes my way / Lori Copeland.
p. cm.
This is an expanded and rewritten edition of Fool me once (1990). ISBN 978-0-7369-3021-5 (pbk.) ISBN 978-0-7369-4285-0 (eBook) I. Title.
PS3553.O6336F67 2012 813 .54-dc23
2011047653
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other-except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 / LB-SK / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Acknowledgments
1
2
3
4
5
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7
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10
11
12
13
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15
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19
20
21
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25
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27
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32
Epilogue
Discussion Questions
About the Publisher
To Sharon Kissiah Holmes-I love you, girl .
To my Harvest House family, especially Kim Moore, who makes my stories stronger .
And to the lumberjacks of old. All the Jakes, Andr s, Shots, Jims, Herbs, and Rays who replanted pine trees so that my children and grandchildren could experience God s goodness .
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Writers are dependent upon research they have either read or experienced, so I wish to gratefully acknowledge four sources I relied on in creating the background for When Love Comes My Way :
Incredible Seney , by Lewis C. Reimann
The Story of Logging the White Pine in the Saginaw Valley , by Irene M. Foehl and Harold M. Hargreaves
Memories of the Minor Lumber Camps , by Carl B.J. Minor
When Pine Was King , by Lewis C. Reimann
When I was writing the book, my husband and I spent time in the beautiful Upper Peninsula of Michigan, visiting the old logging towns and researching how lumberjacks lived in the 1800s. I came away with a new respect and gratitude for those courageous men.
1

Michigan
Winter 1873
T he front door of the office flew open, and Wakefield Timber camp foreman Jake Big Say Lannigan stepped outside. Sunshine blanketed the camp but did little to warm Michigan s biting winter air. Heading north, he strode down the planked sidewalk.
The blacksmith dropped his hammer on the anvil in front of him and stood up straight. Mornin , Big Say. Got time for a cup of coffee?
Not right now. Jake s refusal was sharper than intended, but his mind was on other matters. Tess Wakefield-that woman had his undivided attention.
Heat crept up his neck as he walked to the camp store. It was a sorry day when Rutherford Wakefield was foolish enough to leave his vast logging empire in the hands of a willful, misinformed, spoiled brat! But that was exactly what the old man had done. He d left Wakefield Timber, and everything else he owned, to his granddaughter, Tess.
The familiar jingle of harness filled the brisk air as wagons pulled into camp loaded with men looking for work. Jake made his way across the busy street, paying no attention to the commotion.
A new timber season had begun, and with it the merciless slaughter of white pine. Jake knew that half the greenhorns coming here today had no idea what they were getting into. Come summer, most of them would move on until the next cutting season.
Greed caused his headache. The Gazetteer, a popular tour book of Michigan, had sounded the news that stands of white pine on the Penobscot and Kennebec Rivers in Maine were being depleted and dry lumber was in great demand.
Maps of the mysterious western lands were being passed around to encourage the brave to seek their fortunes. An acre could be bought for sixty cents up to a dollar and a quarter. White pine was desperately needed for houses, barns, sheds, wagons, fences, bridges, boardinghouses, saloons, steamboats, railroad ties, and trestles. There were fortunes to be made in timber, and many opportunists were taking advantage of the windfall.
Jake stepped up onto the porch of Menson s store and opened the door. He glanced around, searching for Andr Montague. The burly Frenchman was not only a good lumberjack, but he also wore many other hats in the camp, including being Jake s pencil pusher and good friend. The man was off shift, but Jake needed to talk to him. He spied Andr smoking a stogie at a table drawn close to the potbellied stove, playing poker with three other men. Jake closed the door and entered the warmth of the building. Andr glanced up from his hand and lifted a dark brow expectantly in Big Say s direction.
Well?
She s going to sell.
Andr shrugged and stared down at his cards. This does not surprise me.
Drawing a deep breath, Jake tried to tell himself he no longer cared what Tess Wakefield did with the business. He d done all he could. The land was hers to do with as she pleased. Other than quit, he had no choice but to accept her decision, but there was no rule that said he had to like it.
He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a wad of crumpled paper. His anger flared anew when he thought of the time he d spent corresponding with Tess over the last few months, trying to persuade her to replant the forests and refrain from selling her grandfather s timberlands. Her timberlands, he corrected, but the thought still left a bitter taste in his mouth.
With a flick of his wrist, he snapped open the first letter.
Dear Mr. Lannigan,
My, my, the budget increase you suggested for planting seedlings seems rather substantial. Couldn t you cut the seedling purchase in half and plant them farther apart?
You are running a business, not a charity. While planting little trees sounds like a worthy cause, we must show a profit or sell. I have recently opened a hat boutique here in Philadelphia, a dream that has always been close to my heart, so it s crucial that we trim the waste at your end, don t you agree?
Sincerely, Miss Tess Wakefield
Jake opened the cast-iron door of the little stove and pitched the letter inside. With a great measure of satisfaction, he watched the fine-grained parchment with its ornate handwriting writhe for an instant before turning into ashes.
Charity? She dared to call planting trees charity?
The word grated on him. Jake Lannigan had never asked anyone for charity in his life. Replanting the forests was not a philanthropic venture. It was a necessity, pure and simple.
He knew that if life wasn t given back to the land soon, the time would come when nature would refuse to provide. And he had written this to Tess Wakefield on three different occasions, but what did he get for an answer?
Dribble. Pure, unadulterated dribble!
He slammed shut the stove door and straightened the second letter.
Mr. Lannigan,
How nice-and unexpected-to hear from you again. My new boutique is causing quite a stir in Philadelphia! Everyone is commenting about my lovely creations. The replanting you keep suggesting will have to wait because, you see, I need to raise the capital to enlarge my thriving business by building more shops. And I simply must import lovely French lace and expensive Chinese silk, which, as you must know, is quite the rage in ladies hats.
Tess Wakefield
Jake jerked open the stove door once again and tossed the missive into the greedy flames. His intense gaze circled the room. This store was where the camp folks gathered to socialize. The women would buy their wares and the men would play cards and tell tall tales about lumberjacking. Here were folks who had dedicated their blood and sweat to Wakefield Timber. Now Miss Wakefield wanted to forfeit their futures for some French lace? How thoughtless of him! Why should future generations possibly matter when the little woman in Philadelphia only cared about hats? Every lady simply must have hats made of lace and Chinese silk!
He angrily flipped open the third letter he had received this morning.
Mr. Lannigan,
Your plea for more time is compelling, but my shop is simply booming, whereas Wakefield Timber is presently nothing but a drain on my resources. Although you ve insisted that Grandfather s business will show a profit at the end of the season, I think my fianc is right. I should cut my losses and reinvest in something more profitable.
Therefore, I am writing to inform you that I am selling my logging business to Mr. Sven Templeton. I will be arriving soon to sign the papers and settle accounts with you. I m sure you will join me in making this a smooth transition for all concerned.
T. Wakefield
With every letter the woman had grown more curt. He should have seen this coming. He wadded the sheet of paper in his fist and flung it into the fire. With a shove, he closed the metal door with the heel of his boot, the angry clank echoing throughout the store.
Sven Templeton-the most ruthless competitor in the timber industry! That merciless jackal would speed up the destruction. There would be no pine replanted. Tess Wakefield obviously didn t care a whit about anyone but herself. She was nothing but a coddled, willful, selfish brat. And Talbot Wellington-Kent, that fancy-talking, highbrow carriage maker she was engaged to marry, told her she needed to sell? How could the man know anything about the tim