Chapter 1
May, 1887
Near Walker Creek, Texas
“Child, if you clutch that letter any tighter, there’ll be nothing left of it.”
Kari Hagen started in surprise from looking out the window at the rolling countryside to noticing the tiny wisp of an elderly woman seated opposite her.
She had been so lost in her whirling thoughts, every clack of the train tracks carrying her closer to her destination, she hadn’t realized anyone had joined her in the dining car. The woman’s gaze as kind as her countenance, Kari nodded and mustered a smile in spite of her mounting apprehension.
“Yes, ma’am, thank you.” Kari loosed her grip on the letter, smoothing it upon the white-clothed table.
Her mother, Lara’s letter.
Written only hours before her death to a stranger so far away from their home in Faribault, Minnesota, that to Kari, he might as well have lived upon the moon.
A stranger her mother had known and loved years ago, before she’d met Kari’s father, Arne Hagen.
A stranger who had written her mother letters over the years that Lara had never answered except for the first one to say she had wed another man and to please forget her. Letters from Walker Creek, Texas, that Lara had cast into the hearth fire without reading out of respect for her husband and their marriage.
Kari had known nothing about this stranger until the morning her mother died, though Lara had revealed little else than that she’d saved enough money over the years for train fare to Texas.
Train fare for Kari to convey the letter personally to this stranger, who must have meant so much to her mother for her to have made such a startling request.
Kari could not forget the shock and confusion upon the faces of her two younger sisters and brother: Ingrid and the twins, Anita and Andreas. To use so great a sum for train fare to hand-deliver a letter rather than to simply mail it when the family had so little? It had made no sense, but Lara had made all of them swear to honor her dying wish.
Now Kari was on the final leg of a journey that had taken days while her siblings had been left behind to do the best they could without her. At twenty-one, she was the eldest after all. The sister they had looked up to during their mother’s long illness though they weren’t so far apart in age, Ingrid, only a year younger, and Anita and Andreas just turned eighteen.
Had they paid the rent for their small house on time? Had they bought the supplies Kari had carefully listed with what was left over that must see them through another month?
With her and her sisters working as seamstresses and Andreas a blacksmith’s apprentice, they had managed to make ends meet, but just barely. When their father had died three years ago and they had lost their homestead to the bank, the family had moved into town where they had eked out a living. Yet without her, there was one less pair of hands to mend and sew—dear God, please preserve their family until she returned home!
With a heavy sigh, Kari realized she clutched the letter again. She glanced apologetically at the elderly woman who gazed at her with such understanding that Kari felt tears burn her eyes.
“It’s best for now that you slip that letter back into your reticule. Holding onto it won’t help you to discern its contents. You must be patient, child, and always remember to trust in the Lord with all your heart…even in your darkest moments.”
Her companion’s softly spoken words a soothing balm to her heart, Kari nodded though she felt a bit startled, too. The envelope was sealed, but how did the woman know that Kari had no idea as to what might have been written?
“Forgive me,” she murmured, obliging her and slipping the letter into her reticule. “I haven’t introduced myself. Miss Kari Hagen.”
“Kari. Such a lovely name. It’s mine, too, you know. Were you christened after someone special?”
A soft twinkle lit the woman’s blue eyes, and now Kari didn’t feel as startled as strangely warmed by her companion’s revelation.
“My mother’s great-aunt. My grandmother died in childbirth so Tante Kari helped to raise my mother until she passed away when Mama was six. She loved her so. Mama always made Tante Kari’s cardamom cake for special occasions…well, until she became too ill.”
Kari fell silent, touched again by the kind compassion in the woman’s gaze.
For the first time, she really looked at her and noted the trim brown bonnet set atop her silvery hair and her matching dress of a style from many decades past that Kari had once seen in a book. The woman spoke with a lilting accent like she hadn’t been born in America but newly arrived from the old country, Norway, though her English was impeccable.
“You’re bound for Walker Creek?”
“Yes, the next stop.” Kari glanced out the window to see rooftops above the trees in the distance even as a sudden blast of the train whistle made her jump.
“Ah, no time left even for a cup of tea. Shall we return to our seats?”
Kari nodded and rose to her feet, feeling flustered now as the brakes began to squeal shrilly while the train slowed.
