Rebecca's Reward (Daughters of Blessing Book #4)

Lauraine Snelling

Description

Nineteen-year-old Rebecca Baard has experienced more than her share of sorrow, and now she is afraid to open her heart to love. Besides, no man has ever shown enough interest in her to come courting. So Rebecca's friends set out to remedy the situation, concocting social events to attract all the eligible bachelors in Blessing and advising her in the use of feminine wiles. When non of these efforts seem to work, Rebecca tries yet another tack, only to discover that even the best of intentions can't keep events from taking a surprising turn. Will Rebecca overcome her fears, or will she settle for something less than love?

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781585587896
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Books by
Lauraine Snelling

Golden Fill Collection One *
Golden Filly Collection Two *
Secret Refuge (3 in 1 )
D AKOTA T REASURES
Ruby • Pearl
Opal • Amethyst
D AUGHTERS OF B LESSING
A Promise for Ellie • Sophie’s Dilemma
A Touch of Grace • Rebecca’s Reward
H OME TO B LESSING
A Measure of Mercy
No Distance Too Far
R ED R IVER OF THE N ORTH
An Untamed Land
A New Day Rising
A Land to Call Home
The Reaper’s Song
Tender Mercies
Blessing in Disguise
R ETURN TO R ED R IVER
A Dream to Follow • Believing the Dream
More Than a Dream
* 5 books in each volume

© 2008 Lauraine Snelling
Published by Bethany House Publishers 11400 Hampshire Avenue South Bloomington, Minnesota 55438 www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan. www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Ebook edition created 2010
Ebook corrections 06.03.2019
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, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-58558-789-6
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.
Cover design by Koechel Peterson & Associates, Inc., Minneapolis, Minnesota
DEDICATION
T O MY FAMILY, BOTH IN A MERICA AND N ORWAY for my rich heritage and the beginning of my stories. Who ever would have dreamed of all this? To God be the glory.
Contents
Cover
Half Title Page
Books by Lauraine Snelling
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
About the Author
Bjorklund Family Tree
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
Epilogue
Back Ads
Back Cover
LAURAINE SNELLING is an award-winning author of over sixty books, fiction and nonfiction, for adults and young adults. Her books have sold over two million copies. Besides writing books and articles, she teaches at writers’ conferences across the country. She and her husband, Wayne, have two grown sons, a basset named Chewy, and a cockatiel watch bird named Bidley. They make their home in California.

1
Late December 1902
Blessing, North Dakota
“G US B AARD, YOU ARE the most stubborn brother a girl could ever have.” Rebecca glared, hands clamped on her hips. Since she only had two living brothers, it wasn’t much of a contest, but still, why could he never, ever see her point of view? To keep herself from launching a full attack, she slammed the kitchen cabinet door. The dishes rattled inside.
“You know we don’t have any money for your silly dream, so quit wasting time on it. Destroying the cattle killed a lot of dreams.”
“I know that, but if thinking about my soda shop makes me happy, what’s wrong with a bit of happy?” What else could she slam, other than his head? “Besides, I have my graduation money.” Every year each graduate of the Blessing school received one hundred dollars from Mr. Gould, a wealthy man in New York who’d been a friend of the Bjorklunds since the homesteading days.
“Money that should go into the bank to help replace our livestock.” Gus shook his head. “Grow up, Rebecca. What’s more important—our farm and keeping our heads above water or . . .”
She glared at him, anything to keep from bursting into tears again. Crying never did any good. All the tears she’d shed over the destruction of the cows, pigs, and sheep had only given her a headache. That and all the smoke from the burning carcasses. Hoof-and-mouth disease had decimated all the cloven-footed animals west of the Mississippi. They had gone for months without milk, cream, butter, and meat other than chicken, fish, or rabbit, unless they paid the exorbitant prices for that brought in on the train. With no milk to sell to Ingeborg Bjorklund’s cheese house, they’d had no income until after harvest.
So what was wrong with dreaming? If only she could talk these things over with her mother, but Agnes Baard had died nine years earlier, leaving a hole in her youngest child’s heart the size of North Dakota.
“You’re not going to cry now, are you?”
The tone of his voice set her off again. “Gus Baard, you better get out of my kitchen before I . . . before I . . .” She started toward him, no plan in mind, but the look on her face must have convinced him that even though he was eight inches taller than she and a lot heavier, retreat was wiser than confrontation. She slammed the door behind him and collapsed on a kitchen chair. “Lord, I hate winter, I hate the cattle dying, and I hate all the sorrow around here. I just thought I could bring some people a little happiness, and look what it gets me. A never-ending fight with my brother. And the sad thing is, he’s probably right. I hate it when he is right!”
At least Knute, the older of the two brothers, didn’t try to boss her around all the time, but then, she didn’t live with him, at least not anymore. Besides, he had his wife, Dorothy, and three little kids to worry about. Gus just had too much time on his hands.
Rebecca shook her head and, realizing her hair was about to tumble about her face, unpinned it, finger combed the thick mass, and twisted it into a coil to repin at the base of her skull.
Was she really being selfish, as he’d said many times before, or was keeping a dream alive important? Maybe she would ask the girls after church, or perhaps Gerald would have time to talk. It was a good thing she had friends, because it might be a week before Gus spoke to her after this round.
If only the wind would quit shrieking around the eaves and sneaking through the tiniest cracks to freeze everything it touched. Her mother had said that when the wind got the better of her, she would get herself into the Word of God, because only God could order the wind about. The Bible didn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense to Rebecca, at least not like it had to her mother.
The more she thought of what Gus had said, the madder she got. Did he think she was lazy? After all, he was the one for whom she’d been cooking and cleaning and washing, doing all the things that women usually do for husbands and children. Before she graduated last spring, she went to school and still managed to plant a full-sized garden. Her mor or far would have been disappointed with the spring housecleaning, however. Overbearing—that fit her brother. She stared at the table, seeing Gus. It wouldn’t take too long for him to be married. Even if he didn’t seem to notice how the girls looked at him.
He’d turned into one handsome young man—broad of shoulder, hovering right about six feet tall, with hair that nearly matched hers, a warm brown that glinted bits of fire when the sun hit it just right. Their mother had said the cleft in his chin was the fingerprint of an angel, put there when he was born. He was two years older than she but didn’t get his full growth until the last few years, so some folks had thought they were twins when they were younger, a comment that always made their mother laugh. Agnes said she knew for a fact she’d never carried two babies at a time and thanked God for not sending them that blessing.
Best she get to the duties for the day. They were out of bread.
Rebecca had the bread dough rising on the warming oven when Gus returned.
“You’ve gone and ripped the knees out of those pants.” She huffed a sigh. The mending pile was growing again, almost as if clothes were breeding in the basket.
He looked down at his pants, shrugged, and shook his head. “Can’t help it. Maybe next time you can put double patches on ’em right from the beginning.”
Amazing. He was talking to her. “You better marry some girl who loves to patch and mend, that’s for certain sure.”
After their parents’ death, the two of them had stayed at the family home with their older brother Knute. Since the eldest, Swen, was already married to Dorothy, the couple helped as substitute parents. But life took another turn for the worse when Swen was killed by a bull, leaving a pregnant wife. Dorothy named the baby boy Swen, after his father, and nearly two years later, Knute married his sister-in-law. When Gus and Rebecca grew old enough to manage on their own, they moved back into their parents’ farmhouse.
Gus stared at her until she put a hand to her hair to see if it was falling out of the rat she’d wound it around that morning. Wearing her hair in a pouf in front made her look older—at least she thought so.
“What now?” She knew her voice still sounded sharp, but he had started the battle.
“Nothing. I’m going out to work in the machine shed with Knute. If I can’t fix that piece, I’m going to take it in to Sam. He said he thought he could make a new part.”
“Couldn’t you just order it?” She thought of the catalog she’d been daydreaming over, which was what had set him off in the first place. Only instead of machinery parts, this catalog had round tables with black iron pedestals, chairs with heart-shaped wire backs, and best of all, pictures of soda dispensers and refrigerated display cases. How she loved that word display , a place where she would show off her flavors of ice cream in the summer and scoop it out for everyone to enjoy.
No matter what some people seemed to think, Blessing really needed a place where people could come and have a good time eating and visiting, and perhaps young people could be courting there. And just maybe some stranger would walk in and she would fall in love and live happily ever after. Since she was the youngest child in the family and had always spent a lot of time alone, she’d always had a good imagination and invented fairy tales of her own. A shining knight on a white horse was all she wanted. J