She shook her head against him. “You’re wrong, when I had those dreams and put my plans together for the dress factory, I never dreamed I’d have you to help me.”
This from the woman who’d once kicked him out of their daughter’s medical examination and slammed the back door to her seamstress shop in his face. From the woman who’d said she’d never be able to trust him again.
He gathered his wife more fully into his arms, holding her so close that not even air separated them. If anyone was undeserving of the life laid out in front of them, it was him. Nine months ago he was confined to a sickbed, a man with a ravaged shoulder and a forgotten family. But God had taken him in his ruin—in the dark, hopeless winter of his life—and led him into a future bright with dreams.
It might still be winter outside the window, but his heart felt like a warm spring day, green and fresh and filled with sunlight, with new possibilities for the future springing up everywhere he looked.
A Note from Naomi…
Aren’t you glad God can take something old and broken and turn it into something new, just like he did with Thomas and Jessalyn’s relationship? I don’t know about you, but I kind of want to stay in Eagle Harbor a little longer, listening to Thomas and Jessalyn make plans for their future together. Or maybe I want to follow them to Chicago to see how Jessalyn’s dress factory turns out…
Full confession, once the idea was on my head, I couldn’t resist writing a scene that shows Jessalyn and Thomas and the new life they build down in Chicago. In fact, Jessalyn just might have a special surprise for Thomas—one that thanks him for everything he gave up so she could start her dress factory. If you want to read the scene, follow the link below and type in your email, and I’ll send it right to your inbox. https://geni.us/EH5Bonus
But even though Thomas and Jessalyn have much to look forward to, not every in Eagle Harbor feels so happy.
Isaac has blamed himself for his father’s death for almost four years. But does guilt alone hold Isaac back, or do his problems go deeper? To something he hasn’t dared share with his family or anyone else he knows?
He can’t let the woman he’s coming to love know his secret… but what if she learns it anyway? And what if she has a secret of her own? One far bigger and graver than the burden Isaac carries?
Isaac learned at his father’s knee that God’s everlasting love can overcome the deepest of hurts.
But what happens when the time comes to test that love?
Turn the page for a sneak peek atLove’s Bright Tomorrow, the powerful conclusion to the Eagle Harbor Series.
Love’s Bright Tomorrow
Chapter One
Eagle Harbor, Michigan; June, 1884
The dream came in waves, soft and gentle at first. The sun from a hundred different afternoons, beating down until her skin darkened with freckles while she worked the land. The crackle of the fire in the hearth, the sound of her da’s voice. The hunched form of her brother seated at the table with Da, studying the checkerboard. The feel of potatoes in her hand as she scrubbed them for dinner.
The still form of her ailing da as he lay in the corner, barely strong enough to raise himself on his elbows as he mumbled something at her.
From her position beside her father, Aileen leaned closer inside the hot, stuffy cottage, straining to hear her father’s frail voice where he lay in bed. “What was that, Da?”
Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his face held the gray color of death. “The window. Look out the window.”
Not again.She sat back in her chair. “Later, Da. I’m too busy tending ye right now. How about I get another cloth for yer forehead?”
“I told ye, look out the window, lass.” The faint words nearly disappeared before they reached her, but his eyes held a glassy sort of determination.
She swallowed her sigh and rose, then headed over to the closest of the cottage’s two windows. She knew what she’d see, what she’d been staring at it since she was four and old enough to push a chair to the window and peek outside.
The rolling landscape of Ireland filled her vision, a vast expanse of emerald fields sloping softly down toward the crystal blue ocean in the distance. Birds swooped above, calling to each other as they scoured the countryside for food, and a hare peeked around the corner of the stable, then hid again.
“Everything the sun touches, it’ll be ours one day.” Somehow Da’s weak voice still traveled across the room to her, as though her going to the window had given him a sudden burst of strength. “One day I’ll buy those fields for meself. One day the land we work will be ours.”
A sheen of tears glazed her eyes. The land wasn’t ever going to be theirs, not when they couldn’t even afford the rent. At this very moment, her brother Conan was in town, trying to talk the land agent into giving them more time to come up with the money.
Money they weren’t going to have this year, not with Da so ill, not with the falling crop prices, not with the surge of rain they’d gotten over the summer. Half their potatoes, turnips, and carrots were rotting from the moisture in the soil.
“Da, we’re not…” She turned back to face her father, the once-strong man who’d caught a fever over the winter. Despite his bloodshot eyes and wheezing breaths, his gaze held such hope. She swallowed her words of truth and forced out othersinstead. “Aye, Da, the land will be ours one day, and ye’ll be the best farmer in all of Ireland, ye will.”
And then she was no longer eighteen, but six, standing in the field with her father, her apron full of seeds for planting while the rich scent of freshly-plowed soil filled the air.
“Close yer eyes and lift yer face up to the sky.” Her father’s booming voice rumbled from his chest, strong and hearty.
