The Road to Love. Linda Ford

      “What is it that makes a man leave

       his home?” Kate asked.

      “Every man has his own reasons,” Hatcher replied, while hammering a fence staple.

      “Like what?”

      “Some have no place to go. Some no place to stay.”

      She carefully considered him. “Which are you?”

      He shrugged, moved along the fence and pounded in three more staples.

      She followed after him, carrying the bucket containing the fencing supplies. “Where did you start from?”

      “No place.”

      “Are you expecting me to believe you were raised by wolves?”

      He smiled. “Why does it matter?”

      “I’m just making polite conversation. Are you from back east?”

      Stubborn woman wasn’t going to let it go. “Can’t remember.”

      “Can’t or don’t want to?”

      “Yup.”

      “Fine. Don’t tell me. It’s just that I’m so very grateful for my home and feel sorry for anyone who doesn’t enjoy the same blessings.”

      She was indeed blessed, but he kept his thoughts to himself….

      LINDA FORD

      shares her life with her rancher husband, a grown son, a live-in client she provides care for and a yappy parrot. She and her husband raised a family of fourteen children, ten adopted, providing her with plenty of opportunity to experience God’s love and faithfulness. They had their share of adventures, as well. Taking twelve kids in a motor home on a three-thousand-mile road trip would be high on the list. They live in Alberta, Canada, close enough to the Rockies to admire them every day. She enjoys writing stories that reveal God’s wondrous love through the lives of her characters.

      Linda enjoys hearing from readers. Contact her at [email protected] or check out her Web site at www.lindaford.org where you can also catch her blog, which often carries glimpses of both her writing activities and family life.

      The Road to Love

      Linda Ford

      

www.millsandboon.co.uk

      This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before.

      —Philippians 3:13

      I am privileged and honored to have a special critique partner who encourages and challenges me. Without her my struggles to map out my stories would be more painful and, at times, even fruitless.

      Thanks, Deb. I couldn’t do it without you. This book is lovingly, gratefully dedicated to you.

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter Sixteen

      Chapter Seventeen

      Chapter Eighteen

      Chapter Nineteen

      Question For Discussion

      Chapter One

      South Dakota

       Spring, 1933

      The windmill stood tall and stately like a prairie lighthouse.

      Kate Bradshaw shivered. She would sooner walk barefoot through a thistle patch than have to climb up there and grease the gears. But she had no choice. They must have water. She shuddered to think what would happen if the windmill quit and edged toward the ladder.

      God willing, the drought would end soon, but the drifts of dust along the fence line reminded her how dry last year had been—and the two before that. She prayed the hint of spring green in the trees promised a better year ahead.

      She’d put off the task as long as she could, hoping a friendly neighbor might happen by and offer to mount that high ladder and perform the dreaded task. None had.

      The only sign she saw of another soul besides her children was a thin twist of smoke rising from inside the circle of trees across the road.

      Another tramp, she suspected. One who preferred his own company to hanging about with the bunch near the tracks. Wandering men were a sign of the times. The crash and the drought had left hundreds of men unemployed. Homeless. Desperate.

      “Momma, hurry up. I want to see you do it.” Dougie, her son, just barely seven, seemed to think everything was an adventure. He didn’t understand the meaning of the word caution.

      Which gave Kate plenty of reason to worry about him. More than enough dangers lurked about the farm. Yet she smiled at her young son, loving every inch of him. He possessed her brown eyes and brown hair but looked like his father. He’d grow into a handsome man.

      Mary, her blue eyes wide as dinner plates, tugged at Kate’s arm. “Momma, don’t. I’m scared.” A tear surfaced in the corner of each eye, hung there a moment then made parallel tracks down Mary’s cheeks.

      Kate sighed. This child, her firstborn, a fragile nine-year-old, feared everything. The animals. The machinery. The sounds in the night. The wind. If it had been the roaring, moaning wind that shook the house, Kate could have understood. But Mary hated even the soothing, gentle wind, as much as she did the distant cry of coyotes, lonely and forlorn for sure, but never scary. Mary would never admit it to her mother, but Kate felt certain her daughter feared her own shadow. Even as she wiped the tears from Mary’s face, she shoved back the impatience this child’s weakness triggered in her. And wondered how such a child could be flesh of her flesh, how two such different children could have both sprung from the same union, the same loins.

      She patted Mary’s blond head. “I have to, unless we want the whole thing to break down.”

      Dougie bounced up and down, barely able to contain his excitement. “I can help you.” He headed for the ladder.

      More out of protective instinct than necessity Kate lurched after him. Thankfully, she knew, he was too short to reach the bottom bar.

      At her brother’s boldness, Mary wailed like a lost lamb.

      “Dougie, stay back,” Kate said. “I’ll do it. It’s not such a big job. Your poppa did it all the time. Don’t you remember?”

      “No.” Dougie’s smile faded. His eyes clouded momentarily.

      Mary’s eyes dried as she proudly recalled having seen her father climb the windmill many times. “I was never scared when Poppa did it,” she added.

      Kate ached for her daughter. No doubt some of Mary’s fears stemmed from losing the father she adored. Her daughter’s screaming night terrors pained Kate almost as much as the loss of her husband. Hiding her own fears seemed the best way to help the child see how to face difficult situations so Kate adjusted the pair