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The Wedding Arbor
Valerie Hansen
HE GAVE HER SHELTER…With a heart full of hope, Sara Stone took refuge in the serenity of the Ozarks. But she never counted on getting stranded in the middle of a raging storm. Like a godsend, brooding ex-cop Adam Callahan gallantly offered her shelter in his mountainside cabin. And although she knew that her trusting nature had gotten her into trouble before, a smitten Sara vowed to bring joy back into Adam's lonely life.SHE GAVE HIM HER HEARTAdam had cut himself off from faith and love a long time ago–with good reason. But despite his self-imposed isolation, his adorable houseguest touched his world-weary soul. He'd thought his chance for peace and happiness was gone, but now he wondered what the future would hold if he conquered the shadows of the past–and married the woman of his dreams….
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#u3c318d88-6069-5a86-be17-6ccef7db2c59)
Excerpt (#u437cef9d-e787-50ca-9627-ae52b1831bba)
About the Author (#ud379a8ac-aab0-5902-832e-7b30ed22a839)
Title Page (#u8d919e7b-6a37-5adf-9a76-b71a7f8f7e04)
Epigraph (#u6ba57733-0888-51a9-af7a-1797cb9f2024)
Dedication (#uc6c9306d-dbca-5ccb-af7c-e0f968e3bd5b)
Chapter One (#u9dc3be5a-2c11-516d-ba01-caa22b517819)
Chapter Two (#ucc7133aa-31cb-5183-9c9b-77c120dc20fb)
Chapter Three (#uc578e829-0c50-5259-8cb7-216944e69e7e)
Chapter Four (#ua2e9a432-c58f-5ee2-a286-e780785da286)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Dear Reader (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“Don’t you get lonely out here?”
Sara asked. “This is beautiful country and all, but if I were you, I’d miss people.”
Adam couldn’t help noticing everything about Sara. She was attractive. Appealing. Almost endearing. He would have turned away and fled if there was anywhere else to go. He finally found his voice. “I don’t miss people at all.”
“But you did once, didn’t you?” Sara’s words were soft, gently spoken. Without realizing it, she’d drawn on her internal resources to express the spiritual love Adam needed. The love that he’d banished from his wounded soul.
He stiffened. “My life is none of your concern, so don’t try fixing it.”
That statement acted like a bucket of ice water in Sara’s face, negating the compassion blossoming in her heart. If anybody’s life needed fixing, it was hers. Still, she sensed that Adam needed her in his life—more than he even realized…
VALERIE HANSEN
was thirty when she awoke to the presence of the Lord in her life and turned to Jesus. In the years that followed she worked with young children, both in church and secular environments. She also raised a family of her own and played foster mother to a wide assortment of furred and feathered critters.
Married to her high school sweetheart since age seventeen, she now lives in an old farmhouse she and her husband renovated with their own hands. She loves to hike the wooded hills behind the house and reflect on the marvelous turn her life has taken. Not only is she privileged to reside among the loving, accepting folks in the breathtakingly beautiful Ozark Mountains of Arkansas, she also gets to share her personal faith by telling the stories of her heart for Steeple Hill’s Love Inspired line.
Life doesn’t get much better than that!
The Wedding Arbor
Valerie Hansen
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Call unto me and I will answer you and
will tell you great and hidden things
which you have not known.
—Jeremiah 33:3
To my special prayer partners, Angie, Bette,
Brenda, Chris, Karen, Wanda and the wonderful,
caring ladies of the Seekers Sunday school class.
Chapter One (#ulink_3b2ab994-4329-58f3-b035-a8aedbd990bf)
“How do I get myself into these things?” Sara Stone said to herself, gripping the steering wheel of the compact car and hoping the road ahead hadn’t washed out. Not that she’d know for sure until it was too late!
Peering into the sheeting gray rain she gritted her teeth and pressed on. Red-clay-colored runoff water was cresting uneven berms on the upper side of the road, carrying with it rocks the size of tennis balls and all sorts of other rubble.
Sara’s knuckles were white on the wheel. She started to pray silently for safety, then paused, uneasy. There was a time when she had blithely sworn God answered all her prayers. Lately, however, she found herself anything but confident.
“Please, Lord?” she said cynically, only half believing she’d be heard. “I’m nowhere near ready to die. Okay?”
Suddenly the compact little hatchback began to fishtail. Losing traction it kept sliding no matter what she did. Finally it came to rest precariously on the edge of the roadway. One rear wheel hung off in space. The other was bumper-deep in the sticky clay.
“I can still get out of this.” She gunned the motor. The wheels spun. The car’s chassis shuddered and bucked as it sank even deeper into the mire.
Disgusted, Sara shut off the engine, sat back and took a deep breath. Rumbles of thunder shook the skies. Isolated and alone, she held perfectly still, waiting for whatever peril was sure to follow. Her whirling mind returned again and again to the old comedy line about being in “a fine mess.”
If only she hadn’t panicked and run away when the police refused to believe she was being stalked. Tensing, she glanced in the direction she’d come, half expecting to see the headlights of Eric’s car. That would serve her right, wouldn’t it?
Samson’s ears pricked up. He raised his broad, white head to stare at the door, then at his master, Adam Callahan.
“You should have thought of that before the rain started,” Adam warned gently. “If I let you out now you’ll have to spend the night on the porch.”
The enormous white dog looked back at him wisely.
“I mean it, boy. There’s no room in this cabin for a soggy dog the size of a Shetland pony. I don’t care how lovable you are.”
Samson rose. Walking slowly to the door he appeared to listen for a moment before returning to stand beside Adam’s chair. His chin rested on the man’s knees, his chocolate-brown eyes pledged sincerity. When Adam made no move, the dog nudged him gently.
“Okay, but you won’t like it out there. You’re going to get soaked.”
Already waiting at the door, Samson was not wagging his tail, an unusual reaction Adam found rather disquieting. “Don’t go far.” He flicked on the porch light and eased open the door.
The dog burst out into the night. Adam’s jaw dropped. “Hey, you, come back here!”
Adam pulled on a yellow slicker with a hood, and heavy, black rubber boots. Quickly snapping them he stepped out onto the porch to peer into the storm. Samson’s distant baying was the only clue to where he’d headed.
Adam left the cabin at a trot. The next time that mangy ball of fur wanted to go out in the rain he was going to tie a long rope to his collar and stand on the porch holding the opposite end.
“My next house is going to have a spare room to keep wet dogs in,” he murmured, starting into the forest. “And my next dog is going to be a miniature dachshund, or some other little breed, instead of a Great Pyrenees. It’ll have short hair and stubby legs. Then let’s see it get away from me in the middle of an Arkansas monsoon!”
Sara hadn’t moved from the driver’s seat since she’d lost control of the car. She had no idea whether it was safe to climb out.
Making a droll face she remembered praying for patience and wondered what kind of sense of humor God must have. If there was a God, after all.
She recalled her recent disillusionment with Eric Rydell. He’d been hired to teach sixth grade in the school where she taught kindergarten and first. She had trusted him implicitly and introduced him to all her friends. She’d even taken him to church with her until she’d discovered what an accomplished liar he was. His pious, conventional facade was so convincing that most of her acquaintances still refused to believe how unstable he was. They were trying to talk her into getting back together with him! What she really needed was their moral support.
In truth, it was the man’s unnatural possessiveness that most frightened her. None of her fervent prayers for deliverance from it had been answered. She swore he had even begun watching her house. That was when she’d taken matters into her own hands, rented a different car in which to make her escape, and headed for the Ozarks. Maybe, by the time school started again in the fall, he’d have gotten over his ridiculous obsession with her.
And maybe not. Her heart sped, her palms sweating. Had she imagined getting a glimpse of his car in her rearview mirror back on the highway? Were his threats genuine? And if so, had he noticed when she’d turned off the paved road? Or was she simply conjuring up demons where there were none?
The storm raged on. A bolt of lightning struck. Sara flinched and felt the car shift slightly. Tiny hairs prickled at the back of her neck and her forearms. The car offered more protection than she’d find outside in the wilds but there was something immensely disquieting about teetering on the edge of goodness-knows-what while she waited to slide into oblivion!
Sara jerked open the driver’s side door before she could change her mind. She felt the car’s precarious balance change. The roar of a rain-swollen river echoed from somewhere behind. It sounded so close. That ended her choices. No way was she going to take the chance of sliding into the water, car and all!
“Okay, okay,” she told herself. “Take it easy. The main thing is, to not panic.”
She eased her left leg out and placed one foot on the ground. Reaching for the waterproof backpack containing personal items and her precious laptop computer, she eased it past her chest and out into the rain as she stood up.
“Oh, yuck!” Mud squashed beneath and all around her sandals. It oozed between her toes. Wind-driven rain plastered her clothing to her body like panty hose sticking to bare legs on a humid, southern summer day.
“There are no bears, there are no bears,” Sara chanted. “There are no…aaah!”
She clutched the pack to her chest like a shield. The fingers of one hand covered her lips to stifle a squeal. A dingy-white specter rushed out of the underbrush and headed straight for her.
Sara tried to half fend it off, half catch it. She screamed, her high pitch carrying well above the din of the storm.
The animal’s greater weight and momentum propelled them both backward into the mud. She was quite relieved to realize it was a dog and not a deer or a mountain lion. It stood above her and slobbered friendly greetings all over her face and neck. Sara tried in vain to sit up.
“Get off me, you big ox. Now!”
“Just tell him to get down,” a male voice quickly offered.
“He is down. We both are. Oh, my…” Her last statement ended in a gurgled shriek as the dog renewed its efforts to lick her face with a tongue as wide as her palm.
Twisting her head she blinked hard against the rain and tried to get a better look at the stranger.
“Are you okay?” The man’s voice was gruff.
“Oh, fine. Just peachy.” Sara continued to try to forcibly remove the determined animal. “Would you mind?”
“Samson.” The enigmatic stranger spoke with authority. “Down. Let the nice lady go.”
After one parting swipe with his tongue the dog backed off. Sara felt imbedded in the soggy ground and pushed herself into a sitting position, trying to avoid getting any more mud on the precious pack.
Looking up, she tossed her head to swing her bangs out of her eyes, then reached up to smooth the blond hair back with one hand. She realized too late that she had just drawn a band of red clay across her forehead.
“That was cute.” The man was not smiling.
“I’m so glad you’re impressed.” Sara was anything but amused, herself.
“Actually, I’m not,” the blue-eyed man said. “I can understand my dog wanting to come out in the rain, but I’d think a person like you would have more common sense.”
“I was trying to find my great-grandmother’s old homestead.”
“In the middle of this storm?” His tone said more about his opinion of her poor planning than his actual words.
“It wasn’t raining when I left home.”
“So, why didn’t you turn around when you saw what the weather was like?”
Sara was not about to admit she’d been running away. “I couldn’t turn back. The road was too narrow. The visibility was bad.”
He snorted with derision. “You mean, you might have wound up in a ditch if you’d tried to go back? Seems to me that’s exactly what did happen.”
