Heartland Wedding. Renee Ryan

      After a moment of silence, Pete shifted a few steps higher. Gazing at her from his perch, he spoke softly, using the tone he might adopt for one of his spooked horses. “Are you warm enough?”

      She hugged the blanket around her shoulders and nodded.

      “There’s nothing to fear down here.”

      “I…know.”

      “The storm will pass, eventually.”

      She drew in a shuddering sigh and nodded again. Clearly, he was being careful with her, drawing her into conversation slowly. She found herself admiring him all the more for his consideration. It would be easy to build dreams around such a man. But Rebecca knew Pete wasn’t for her and she wasn’t for him. Aside from the fact that they hardly knew each other, his heart still belonged to the wife and child he’d lost.

      He continued talking. Before long, she responded in more than nods and short phrases. When he asked about her childhood in Norway, she told him of the poverty and the never-ending workload. Then she revealed the loneliness she’d suffered when Edward had left for America and her parents had banded tighter together, leaving her feeling alone and left out.

      “I’ve never told anyone that before,” she admitted, wiggling a hand free from the blanket to shove at her hair.

      Pete smiled at her, just a little. “Are you happy in High Plains?”

      She answered without hesitation. “Oh, ja. Mrs. Jennings has been very kind. Cooking for her and the other boarders is a wonderful job.” She swallowed. “But, Pete, I have to know. Why wasn’t Edward at the livery today?”

      “He was, earlier, but then he headed out to the wagon train for a final check on the horses’ shoes.”

      The wagon train. Of course. Edward would want to make sure all the horses were ready for the trek across country. She herself had fed an extra twenty people this morning at the boardinghouse. “I—”

      The wind stopped, suddenly. Pete raised his gaze to the heavens. “Praise God, it’s over.”

      Rebecca released her own sigh of relief.

      Without looking at her again, Pete ascended the stairs, unlatched the bolt and shoved open the door. His shocked gasp alerted Rebecca to what she would find.

      After snuffing out the lantern’s flame, she wrapped the blanket tighter around her shoulders, then slowly picked her way up the stairs.

      The sky had turned bright with sunshine, momentarily blinding her as effectively as the match’s fire had done earlier. When her vision cleared, the view that met her gaze stole her breath away. There was too much devastation to take in at once. Boards blown off houses, everyday household items lying in pieces, trees torn from the earth by their roots, a wagon on a rooftop.

      Rebecca took a tentative step forward. And then another.

      The scent of smoke filled the air, but she couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Somewhere close.

      She glanced at Pete. Lost in his own shock, he stood staring straight ahead, unmoving, jaw clenched. She followed the direction of his gaze. His livery stable was still standing, but a portion of the roof had been completely ripped off.

      “Oh, Pete. I’m so sorry.”

      He didn’t respond. She hadn’t expected him to.

      Tugging the blanket tighter around her, Rebecca turned to look behind her. There was a menacing stillness in the air.

      Half the town’s buildings had been shredded into raw timber.

      Pete Benjamin had just saved her life.

      But what of Edward? Her knees buckled. “How could he have survived this?” she whispered.

      Pete abruptly turned to her, hesitated only a second before taking charge. He directed her to a solitary bench near the stable and sat beside her. “Once you catch your breath we’ll go in search of your brother.”

      What a kind offer. She knew she should refuse. Pete had to tend to his own property. Yet she found herself nodding at his offer. “Ja. I would appreciate your help.”

      They rose as a unit and walked toward the center of town. With each step Rebecca’s breathing quickened. There was so much destruction. So many people stumbling along beside them, but none of them were Edward.

      Where was her brother?

      She gripped Pete’s arm, afraid of what they would find as they picked their way through the debris. Afraid that Edward had not weathered the storm as well as she had thanks to Pete’s quick thinking and persistence.

      When they rounded the corner onto Main Street, Rebecca stopped dead in her tracks. A large pile of shredded wood filled a newly formed gap between them, the schoolhouse and church. “Pete.” Her fingers tightened on his arm. “The town hall is gone.”

      Without waiting for his response, Rebecca released his arm and rushed forward.

      Oh, Lord, please. Please, let Edward have taken cover anywhere but in the town hall.

      Chapter One

      One month after the tornado ripped through High Plains, Rebecca made her way down Main Street. She still had plenty of time to buy her supplies at the mercantile before the lunch crowd arrived at the boardinghouse.

      With that in mind, she let the sun rest on her face as she walked along the slatted sidewalk. She couldn’t help but marvel at the intense July heat. Summer in Kansas was far hotter than in Norway, which was why she chose not to wear gloves or a bonnet like the American women. It was just too hot for her thick Norwegian blood.

      No one else seemed to mind the dreadful heat. The street bustled with an excess of sights and sounds. Hammers hitting nails mingled with mothers shouting after their laughing children. Two young boys chased a dog with a stick in his mouth. A horse hitched to a work wagon rolled by at a leisurely pace.

      Breathing in the scent of sawdust and fresh paint, Rebecca focused her attention on the town itself. Buildings at various stages of construction lined the street, firmly declaring that the rebuilding of the town was coming along.

      “Good morning, Rebecca,” a jaunty voice called out to her.

      “Oh, hello.” Rebecca waved at her friend, Cassandra Garrison, as she rode by in her calash-covered buggy. The town lawyer, Percival Walker, sat beside her, reins in his elegant hands. Despite the heat, the two were impeccably dressed. They were clearly courting, if their smiles were anything to go by.

      Rebecca dropped her hand and sighed, shocked at the jolt of sadness that whipped through her at the sight of all that happiness. Rebecca wanted what Cassandra seemed to have. Love. Companionship. A man of her own.

      Another equally depressed sigh came from a slouching cowboy standing just outside the mercantile. Rebecca didn’t know the lanky man well, but she recognized him. Clint Fuller had eaten at the boardinghouse a few times in the past month. She opened her mouth to speak to him, but he was intently watching the happy couple ride by in Cassandra’s little buggy.

      Rebecca recognized the scowl on the cowboy’s face. Unrequited love. She understood the emotion. And sympathized. Ever since she’d taken refuge from the storm with Pete in his cellar, she couldn’t get the reserved blacksmith out of her head.

      She recalled the events of that day often. Pete’s concern as he pulled her to safety. His kindness as he calmed her panic. His help as she searched for her brother. For one brief afternoon, someone had put her needs above his own. And she now understood God’s design for marriage. It was unfortunate that the one man who had caught her attention was completely out of reach.

      Pete’s loss of his wife and subsequent year-long grief was legendary in High Plains. Rebecca had spent too many years fighting for her own parents’ affection to set her sights on a man still in love with his dead wife.

      Shaking