Season of Grace (Under Northern Skies Book #3) , livre ebook

Baker Publishing Group - Lauraine Snelling

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146 pages

English

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In 1910 Minnesota, Nilda Carlson's dreams are coming true. Though her first few months in America were difficult, her life now resembles the images that filled her daydreams in Norway. She and her younger brother Ivar live in their own house, just a short distance from her older brother and his family. Together they work the farm and fell trees for lumber. They plan to grow a dairy herd, weave rugs out of their own wool, and make skis to sell. Everything is going right.The only thing missing from Nilda's life is love. But though she has two suitors--a quiet schoolteacher and a handsome lumberjack--Nilda feels hesitant. A terrifying experience in Norway has made her cautious where men are concerned. When she thinks she sees the man in question, all her fears come flooding back. Is it possible the danger has followed her across the Atlantic? If Dreng Nygaard is truly in Minnesota, all of her dreams for the future could come crashing down around her.

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Historical fiction

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Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	06 novembre 2018
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781493416097
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	3 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0461€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Cover
Books by Lauraine Snelling
U NDER N ORTHERN S KIES
The Promise of Dawn
Breath of Hope
A Season of Grace
S ONG OF B LESSING
To Everything a Season
A Harvest of Hope
Streams of Mercy
From This Day Forward
An Untamed Heart
R ED R IVER OF THE N ORTH
An Untamed Land
A New Day Rising
A Land to Call Home
The Reapers’ Song
Tender Mercies
Blessing in Disguise
R ETURN TO R ED R IVER
A Dream to Follow
Believing the Dream
More Than a Dream
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
A Heart for Home
W ILD W EST W IND
Valley of Dreams
Whispers in the Wind
A Place to Belong
D AKOTAH T REASURES
Ruby
Pearl
Opal
Amethyst
S ECRET R EFUGE
Daughter of Twin Oaks
Sisters of the Confederacy
The Long Way Home
A Secret Refuge 3-in-1
Title Page
Copyright Page
© 2018 by 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 2018
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—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—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 978-1-4934-1609-7
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Dan Thornberg, Design Source Creative Services
Author is represented by the Books & Such Literary Agency.
Contents
Cover
Books by Lauraine Snelling
Title Page
Copyright Page
1
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About the Author
Back Ads
Back Cover
Chapter 1

A UGUST 1910
T he rocking chair on the porch made all the difference.
Nilda Carlson grinned at her sister-in-law and best friend, Signe. “There’s no furniture inside yet, but now this house looks more like a home.”
Signe smiled. “Pinch me. I must be dreaming.”
Nilda did as she was told.
“Ouch.” Signe rubbed the spot on her arm. “You didn’t have to do it, you know.”
“I know, but it’s not often I get an offer like that. But believe it—you are moving into your very first brand-new house that you and my brother own! I can’t wait for the housewarming party tomorrow. Our hours of hard work are not over, but tonight you will sleep in your own bed in this very house.”
“And still eat and cook at Gerd’s house until our cookstove arrives.” Signe sat down in the rocking chair, shaking her head. She looked up at Nilda. “I have an idea, something that has been mulling in my mind.”
“I think I know what you are thinking.” Nilda laid her hand on Signe’s shoulder. “Moving Gerd in with you.”
Signe nodded. “How did you guess? It makes so much sense. I cannot bear to take Kirstin away from her. She can have the bedroom off the kitchen so she needn’t climb the stairs. Rune agreed. Said he was thinking the same thing.”
“Then it makes sense to move her furniture over here too, or at least part of it. When will you tell her—er, ask her?”
“Probably tomorrow, if we can wait that long. Maybe tonight.”
That leaves only Ivar and me living in Gerd’s house.
They watched Bjorn, Signe’s oldest, halt the wagon that held the rope bed from the attic, along with the bedding and the trunks Signe and Rune had brought from Norway not much more than a year earlier.
“So much change in so little time.” Signe leaned her head against the back of the chair.
“So much change in just the three months Ivar and I have been here. Let’s go help unload the wagon and get the beds made for tonight. Although yours is the only one that will take any time. Throwing the boys’ pallets on the floor won’t take but a minute.”
“Which room do you want?” Rune called as he and Ivar, Signe’s younger brother, carried the two-by-ten boards for the bed frame up the stairs. Boards waiting to be hung for the walls took up space in all the bedrooms and in the hall. Bare studs enclosed the rooms. Finishing the interior walls was a good job for stormy days and wintertime.
Nilda smiled at her best friend as they stood in the upper hall. “You get to choose a room!”
“I-I . . .” Signe looked from doorway to doorway.
Rune and Ivar were both shaking their heads.
“I . . .” Signe sucked in a deep breath and pointed to the east room. “I want that one so I can wake up to see the dawn. I’ve always loved seeing the sun come up.”
“How would you know?” Rune asked. “You are always down in the kitchen by that time.”
“Why, Rune Carlson, you just made a joke.” Nilda shared a grin with Ivar. “We’ll let you two get your job done and start hauling up the rest of the wagon load.”
While the men bolted the bed frame back together, the two women emptied the wagon. What had seemed like a lot in the wagon felt like very little in the empty rooms. They set the trunk from Norway under the window at the opposite end of the hall from the stairs and laid out the boys’ pallets and bedding in the room beside Signe and Rune’s.
“Mor?” Leif called from downstairs. “We got the beans picked and snapped. Tante Gerd said to tell you that Kirstin is missing you.”
The two women left their cleaning bucket and returned to the other house to help get the beans on to can and make sure Kirstin did not get to the screaming stage, something she rarely did. But when she did, the whole township might hear her.
Kirstin was back to her happy self, the boiler of beans was steaming, and Signe was packing beans in more jars when Gerd called a halt for dinner.
“The bed is finished,” Rune said as they sat down to eat. “I was hoping to have the others made by now too, but . . .”
“But you are still doing the finish work inside and outside at the house.” Gerd gave him a stern look. “Be careful you don’t get obsessed with finishing the house like Einar did with felling trees.”
All of them stared at Gerd. Nilda made sure she closed her mouth. Tante Gerd Strand did not say a whole lot, but when she did, the wisdom she’d kept in hiding peeked out. Since her husband, Einar, had died so suddenly about six weeks earlier, she had become a different woman—one none of them realized had been inside her.
“Takk for the reminder, Tante Gerd,” Rune said while nodding. “I guess all the things I wanted to get done before the housewarming might be good to do, but aren’t necessary.”
Nilda glanced at the loaves of bread rising in the pans. There were beans in jars on the stove, beans ready to cook with bacon tomorrow for the party, and a haunch of smoked venison waiting to be put in the oven in the morning.
“This afternoon I think you need to take a nap with Kirstin, Tante Gerd. You’ve been pushing as hard if not harder than the rest of us,” Signe said gently.
“We’ve never had a party at this place before. It is about time.” A faraway look crept over Gerd’s face. “I always dreamed of having neighbors come to our house, to visit together like we did at home, but at first Einar and I were working too hard and then . . .” Her voice drifted off. She heaved a sigh and nodded. The look floated on by. “But now is different.”
They all watched her while they ate.
She nodded more firmly. “Now we—I—can start over again.”
The silence lengthened, as if no one even wanted to breathe, they were so focused on her. Kirstin set her chair to rocking and babbled at her fingers.
Leif turned to Tante Gerd sitting beside him. “And we can have a party with lots of good food.”
“And music and dancing.” Ivar nudged his brother. “Maybe even your far will dance,” he said to the boys. “He always said he had two left feet and they liked to trip each other.”
“Do you know how to dance?” Leif asked Tante Gerd.
She nodded. “I used to. If I try, will you dance with me?”
“If you teach me how.”
She held out her hand. “Deal.”
They shook. “Deal.” Leif gave a little bounce on his chair. “This is going to be a real good party.”
I just hope people are not afraid to come . Einar had made many enemies; in fact, just about no one liked the Strands. Nilda prayed that would change soon. She was careful to keep any doubt from her face. Sometimes memories were hard to dispel.
That evening after the chores and supper were done, and the lightning bugs were starting to twinkle in the dusk, the boys were raking around the new house while the adults enjoyed a last cup of coffee on the porch of the old house.
“Tante Gerd, Signe and I have made a decision, and we hope you will agree with us,” Rune said.
Gerd paused playing with Kirstin. “What might that be?”
“We would like you to come live with us in the new house. You would have the bedroom off the kitchen so you needn’t climb the stairs and, well, this is just what we would like to do.”
“We think it would be easier,” Signe added softly. “And better.”
“I-I—but that is your house.”
“Not really. It seems more to us it is our house, like you said this one is our house. Not the Strand house or the Carlson house, but our houses. Maybe the old one and the new one, but both are ours.”
Nilda waited for Gerd to answer. Please, she pleaded silently. This would be for the best.
Gerd’s voice shimmered with tears. “I . . .” Another pause lengthened, broken by her blowing her nose and sniffing. “Could we have Kirstin’s bed in that bedroom too?”
“If you would like, though you know how she wakes sometimes duri