Time to Bloom (Leah's Garden Book #2) , livre ebook

Baker Publishing Group - Lauraine Snelling

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184 pages

English

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Will their dreams fall apart when confronted with all that is stacked against them?Delphinium Nielsen and her sisters have accomplished much in the past year, traveling west and settling in Nebraska. They are on their way to building a garden in dedication to their mother and working against the forces of nature to make their farm thrive. However, none of that can mask their concern that they are quickly running out of money. Del's work teaching in their booming town offers hope, not only to support her sisters financially, but also to better her students' lives. Not all of the town sees it that way, though, with the rebuilding of the schoolhouse continually neglected and her brightest student's father demanding he work the farm instead of attend class.When their brother Anders arrives with his war-wounded and heartbroken friend RJ, Anders sees the strength of the sisters' idea to start a boardinghouse and decides to invest in it. Del finds RJ barely polite and wants nothing to do with him. But despite Del and her sisters' best-laid plans, the future--and RJ--might surprise them all."Snelling's thorough research pays off in her vivid evocation of frontier-era Nebraska . . . The result is a transportive historical worth getting lost in."--Publishers Weekly

Sujets

Historical romance

Historical fiction

Informations

Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	07 juin 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781493437245
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	3 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0408€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Half Title Page
Books by Lauraine Snelling
L EAH ’ S G ARDEN
The Seeds of Change
A Time to Bloom
A Blessing to Cherish
U NDER N ORTHERN S KIES
The Promise of Dawn
A Breath of Hope
A Season of Grace
A Song of Joy
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
© 2022 by Lauraine Snelling
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55438
www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan
www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Ebook edition created 2022
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 978-1-4934-3724-5
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 Books & Such Literary Agency.
Baker Publishing Group publications use paper produced from sustainable forestry practices and post-consumer waste whenever possible.
Dedication
To Wendy Lawton.
Wendy is one of the most creative people I know, in so many ways.
Her marvelous business sense is put to good use as an agent,
where she blesses us all through her skills and encouragement.
Epigraph
Delphinium
Derived from the Greek word delphis , meaning dolphin , since the flowers are shaped like dolphins.
They symbolize an open heart and ardent attachment and convey a feeling of light and levity.
Contents
Cover
Half Title Page
Books by Lauraine Snelling
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Epigraph
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
Epilogue
About the Authors
Back Ads
Cover Flaps
Back Cover
1
S ALTON, N EBRASKA J ULY 1866
H as it been an entire year? Delphinium Nielsen thought in surprise.
She and her three sisters were gathered around the table in their sod house. She said aloud, “We’ve been here in Nebraska for a whole year, and I think we need to celebrate. After all, we’ve accomplished a great deal.”
She waved to include the addition to the house and their section of land that would one day become Leah’s Garden. They already had the sign up at the end of their lane. The garden would be a dedication to their mother, who dreamed of having a nursery of plants, flowers, bushes, trees of the flowering and shade kinds, and also fruit and nut trees. Her dream had been in Ohio, but then the war got in the way, and both of their parents passed on to their heavenly reward.
“I agree.” Larkspur, the eldest, nodded.
“So what are you thinking?” Forsythia, the first of them married and the third in line, asked.
Del shrugged. “I don’t know. The words just popped out of my mouth. I guess a party for all of our friends here in Salton. I could invite the families of my students too.”
Excitement pricked at the thought of seeing her beloved schoolchildren again. She needed to start planning for the fall term soon. With all the new families in town, she could have a much fuller classroom. Hopefully in an actual school building this year instead of the church, where they’d been meeting since the tornado last fall.
“We could ask people to bring their own chairs or benches.” Lilac, the youngest, held Mikael, the baby they had adopted on their trip west, along with Robbie and Sofie, who were playing with their carved animals outside. Forsythia had promised both of the two mothers who died on the trail that she would take care of their children. When she married Dr. Adam Brownsville, they had a ready-made family.
“We’d have to.” Del paused. “You know, there’s a town meeting coming up. We could issue the invitation there.”
“Why not at church tomorrow?” Lilac watched Mikael as he woke and grinned up at her. She kissed his forehead. “You are such a good baby.” Her words earned her another grin.
“True, but I also need to ask around about more important things.” Lark sighed. “I need to find a bull for Buttercup. She should have been bred several months ago.”
Robbie had decided that the little heifer born to Buttercup was his. He named her Clover, and she followed him around like a dog. Right now she was lying in the shade of the house, chewing her cud while the children played.
“Doesn’t the Weber family north of town have one?” Forsythia asked.
“I’ll find out.” Lark looked up. “Just think, with a roof from this side of the house, we could have shade outside for gatherings like this. Our trees can’t grow fast enough. When I think of home, I covet the trees.”
The cottonwood they’d dug up at the creek bed and planted off the corner of the house last fall had made it through the winter and leafed out, but it couldn’t be called a shade tree yet.
“There aren’t many around here, that’s for sure.” Del dug a sheet of paper out of the cabinet Jesse, Adam’s nephew, had made for them. He had even carved the handles for the doors. She sat back down at the table. “All right, let’s plan this event. A week or two from this Saturday?”
“No, let’s do as Lilac suggested and have Reverend Pritchard announce it in church tomorrow for next Saturday. Why put it off?” Lark asked.
They all shrugged, so Del wrote that on the paper. “We’ll have a potluck supper and music for singing and dancing after.”
“If there’s to be dancing, we need to firm up some dirt,” Lark said. “We’ve not had that many people out here at one time before.”
“I know. A real celebration.” Del beamed.
“I thought we had a fine celebration after our wedding,” Forsythia said. “That was only a few weeks ago.”
“We did, but no potluck or dancing. And besides, that was in town,” Del said. “This will be right here.”
Sofie came in from outside. “Mama, Robbie growled at me.”
Forsythia rolled her eyes. “You go tell Robbie that Mama said to play nice.” She paused. “Wait. What did you do that made him growl?”
They all knew that Robbie was infinitely patient with Sofie.
“I smashed his fence.”
“And why did you smash his fence?”
“Because.” The little girl studied her bare feet on the finished dirt floor, her light blond hair in two braids.
“Because why?”
Del pushed her laughter down. Forsythia was so patient with the little ones.
“’Cause he said my cow couldn’t come in his pasture.”
“And why was that?”
“’Cause there was no gate, so I smashed the fence to make a gate.” She pulled her shoulders up to her ears. “And now my cow can go in his pasture.”
“Makes perfect sense to me,” Del muttered. Lilac nearly burst trying not to laugh.
Forsythia sent a pleading look to the others, then shook her head. “Big help you are.”
Del pushed back her bench seat and took the tin they used for cookies down off a shelf. She handed two to Sofie. “You take these and give one to Robbie. That’ll make him stop growling.”
As the little girl happily trotted outside, the four sisters looked at one another and let the laughter roll.
“You’ve got to admit, she thought it through before smashing the fence. That’ll teach him to build gates.” Lark reached for a cookie and passed on the tin.
“As Ma would have said, there’s a life lesson here: Always build gates. First is probably best.” Del nodded. “Our mother was a very wise woman.” She hoped to pass along some of that wisdom to her students, since she doubted she’d ever have a family of her own.
“She would have so enjoyed these little ones. Sometimes I miss her so much I hurt all over.” Lilac looked down at the year-old boy starting to wiggle in her arms. “We need to remember to tell Jesse about the fence smashing.”
Adam and Jesse were spending every spare minute trying to complete the four upstairs bedrooms in Adam’s house. He was already muttering that they should have made the house larger. Forsythia suggested the answer was to move his office and treatment rooms to a separate building or off one side of the house. Ideally, they could add a room or two for patients who needed more extensive care.
“Any more planning we need to do for the party?” Forsythia asked.
“Not that I can think of, except what food we want to fix,” Del said. “Folks will bring the rest. What else needs to be done here, besides creating a place to dance?”
“Pray for rain. Carrying buckets to water the garden is a real backbreaker. I should ask Jesse if he could fashion me a yoke to carry two buckets, like I’ve seen in pictures.” Lark looked to Lilac. “Could you draw a diagram?”
Lilac thought a bit. “I’ve seen pictures like that. It might be faster than hauling buckets in the wagon. What about the barrel that was on the wagon we came west in?”
“Too big for the wagon we have now. We’ll use that to collect rainwater as soon as we have a shingled r