prologue

Charleston, South Carolina—1887

Susannah Butler sat in her parents’ parlor, in the plush blue-velvet chair, and listened with mounting trepidation as her father spoke. He’d lapsed into a familiar, long-winded speech about family and honor that she’d memorized long ago.

She tried to block out his words, to resist what he was saying; but as always, she could not. Guilt ate at her gut as he reminded her, yet again, that she was the only child he had left. The last Butler.

Except for one.

She couldn’t believe he was going to force her to do it. Why couldn’t he just let well enough alone? Her sister was dead, wasn’t that enough?

But it wasn’t enough. He wanted her sister’s daughter, who lived with her daddy in Texas. He wanted to take little Beth away from the only home she’d ever known and bring her here, to the Butler mansion.

Beth would hate it here. Never mind the fact that she would be taken away from Bobby Joe Aaron, her father, and that she’d have to live with Susannah’s overbearing father and ever-absent mother.

“Are you listening to me, Susannah?” her father growled as he stuck his beefy hands into the small pockets at his ample waist. He was a short, stocky man with fuzzy gray hair and matching bushy eyebrows that were always furled. He was rarely seen without a cigar clamped between his teeth, and when he spoke, everyone within a hundred-yard radius could hear him. He liked it that way.

There was no one more important to Winston S. Butler than Winston himself.

Susannah cleared her throat and fiddled with the lacy handkerchief crumbled in her hand. “I’m listening, Daddy, but I don’t see how I can do this. I don’t even—”

“You’re a Butler, girl,” he interrupted with a scowl. “We don’t know the meaning of the word can’t! Now, are you going to complain some more or are you going to do what we’ve planned? You’re our only hope here, Susannah. Don’t let me down like. . .”

Susannah got up from her chair and planted her hands on her hips. “Like I did with Francis Bellington—is that what you were going to say, Daddy?”

“He is a millionaire three times over and would have made you a fine husband. He would have been a great addition to the Butler family.”

Susannah had to laugh at that. “Daddy, I’m only twenty years old and he is seventy-five! The only great addition you wanted from the poor old man was his three million dollars! Now, I will do almost anything for you, but I have to draw a line sometimes, because—”

“Are you telling me that’s what you’re doing now? Are you drawing a line, Susannah?”

They stared at one another for a full minute.

A stranger walking into the room would not have been able to tell he was seeing father and daughter, for Susannah was so different from her father. Everyone said that she was the spitting image of her mother’s mother. Tall, red wavy hair, a peachy complexion with only a few freckles splashed across her dainty nose, and brilliant green eyes—these all came together to make Susannah Butler one of the most beautiful women in Charleston.

But, boy, could she talk, which probably accounted for the fact that she was still single. It was known that she’d once been held up by a couple of robbers while riding on a stagecoach. She’d babbled on and on about how terrible it was for them to be doing what they were doing, which had distracted them so much that the sheriff was able to ride up and arrest them before they’d known what was happening.

“Daddy, do you think that Bobby Joe Aaron is going to just sit there and hand over his daughter to me? I can’t think of a thing that would convince him to do such a thing, can you? I mean, let’s look at this with a clear head! There are holes the size of. . .well, Texas in this plan! I think we need to sit down and—”

“How in the world am I supposed to look at anything with a clear head with all your yammering!” he said, putting his hands over his ears. He glared at her a moment, then dropped his hands. “Now then. If there are holes, then you’re just going to have to think of some way to plug them up! I’ve tried to be reasonable about this by writing Aaron and asking him to let us see Elizabeth, but the man won’t even dignify my request with a response!”

“But, Daddy, I don’t think that gives us the right to—”

“That girl is a Butler and she belongs here. It’s up to you to make it happen.”

Her temper was starting to get the better of her. Susannah could feel the heat rising in her face. But like all true Southern women, she was prepared. Whipping out a silk fan from her skirt pocket, she began to fan herself rapidly. “May I also remind you, Daddy, that Beth is an Aaron, too? She belongs with her father.”

“Her father,” Winston spat out with distaste on his face, “is a no-account cowpoke!”

Susannah pursed her lips as she continued to fan, harder now. “He’s not a ‘cowpoke’; he owns a sawmill!”

Winston yanked the cigar stub out of his mouth and ground it into the ashtray on a small end table. “He’s a Texan. What’s the difference?”

Susannah stopped fanning and frowned. “You don’t know the dif—”

“Of course I know the difference! I was just making a point!”

Susannah rolled her eyes. “I think you could have come up with a different way to make that point. I mean, if you’d said—”

“Are you going to stand there and talk me to death, or are you going to go to Texas?”

Say no! her mind screamed at her. But she just couldn’t do it. She was his only child and he depended on her—even if his thinking was crazy, not to mention self-centered.

“Oh, all right,” she conceded with a sigh. “But don’t blame me if I can’t do it. I’ll try. That’s all I can do.” She opened and closed her fan while she thought a moment about what she wanted to say.

Finally, with chin raised, she spoke. “And while I’m over there in Texas dillydallying in my poor brother-in-law’s business, I’m also going to be praying.” She raised her hand to stop the argument that she knew would come. “Now, I know you aren’t a religious man, Daddy. I’m just warning you that if I feel that God is telling me to forget the whole business and come back to South Carolina, that’s what I’m going to do!”

He opened his mouth again, but she pressed on. “And if I feel that it’s in the best interest of Beth to bring her back here, then so be it. But, I’m telling you right now, Daddy, I’m going to be on my knees every morning and night. And what I’ll be praying for most of all is that God will talk to that cold heart of yours and make you come to your senses!”

“You never mind about my senses! Just bring the child back!”

She shook her head with pity as her father turned to pull another cigar out of the fancy case on the fireplace mantle. She prayed every night that her father would come to accept Christ in his heart, like she had. She was the only one in the family who was a believer, now that her sister was gone. It had been the girls’ governess, Mrs. Oglethorp, who had led Susannah to the Lord. Of course, when her father discovered that she was teaching them from the Bible, Mrs. Oglethorp had been promptly dismissed.

In Winston Butler’s mind, religion of any kind was for the weak. It had no place in the Butler household.

Susannah started to leave, but something still nagged at her. “Daddy? Just what am I supposed to do when I get to Springton, Texas? How am I supposed to explain my presence there?”

Her father nonchalantly lit a cigar. “I’ve managed to get you a job as the town’s schoolteacher. You start as soon as you get there.”

Susannah stood in stunned silence for a moment. All her life she’d dreamed about becoming a teacher, and although she’d had plenty of schooling, her father would never permit her to work. Now, here he was, handing her dream to her on a silver platter.

A dream with conditions.

“I’ll give you a year to figure out some way to get Elizabeth and bring her back. After that, if you’re not successful, I’ll do the job, my way. But regardless, you’ll be coming home,” he informed her in no uncertain terms.

Finding it difficult to contain her excitement, she nodded and flew out of the parlor. It didn’t matter if it was only for a year. She was going to savor and enjoy this year so that she would have it to look back on in later years.

As she ran up the wide marble staircase, she whispered a prayer of thanks to God for giving her this opportunity. He’d always taken such good care of her in the past, helping her through the difficult days after she’d lost her sister, and now He was blessing her beyond anything she could have imagined.

She was going to be a teacher!

Springton, Texas, might be just a cowpoke town to her daddy, but suddenly it had become paradise to Susannah!

❧

Springton, Texas—one month later

“Brother Caleb!” Bobby Joe Aaron called out to Springton’s minister, who had been busy fixing a loose board on his front porch. Caleb looked up and waved as Bobby Joe opened the white gate to the reverend’s yard. “I’m sorry I missed the town meeting. Was anything decided about a schoolteacher?”

Caleb put down his hammer and stood up. “Hello, Bobby Joe.” He shook hands with the tall man as he nodded his head. “Lucky for us, we got a qualified applicant’s résumé in yesterday’s mail, just in time for the meeting. She’s from back east, she’s single, and she has been to some mighty impressive schools. She was more qualified than the rest, so we decided to hire her.”

Bobby Joe nodded his head. “That’s great. I had hired a tutor for Beth, but I’d rather that she was around other kids.” What Beth really needed was a mother, but he didn’t say that to the preacher. The more his daughter was around all his brothers and himself, the more tomboyish she became. She needed a mother to show her how to be a little lady. The only problem with that was, he would have to marry to get her one! Bobby wasn’t sure he was ready for another marriage. Not if it ended like his last one had.

Brother Caleb nodded and looked at Bobby Joe with interest. “So how are you these days, Bobby Joe? I’m still looking for you on Sundays, you know.”

Bobby Joe smiled, but it held a trace of bitterness. “I just don’t feel up for church these days, Reverend.”

“I know that, and part of me understands. But God is right there to help you if you need Him. Day or night. All you have to do is ask.”

Bobby Joe nodded as he shuffled his boot about on the porch step, clearly uncomfortable. “Well, I just wondered about the meeting. I’ll let you get back to your work.” He started to turn away, then remembered to ask, “By the way, what is her name?”

Caleb frowned, not understanding, then suddenly his face cleared. “Oh, you mean the teacher! Last name is Butler. . . Susannah Butler, I believe. She’s coming from South Carolina.”

Every last bit of color left Bobby Joe’s face. Surely this couldn’t be his wife’s sister! He swallowed. “That wouldn’t be. . .Charleston, South Carolina, would it?” he asked slowly.

Caleb nodded as he reached for his hammer again, missing the shocked expression on Bobby Joe’s face. “Yeah, I believe that’s it!”

Bobby Joe took a deep breath, then straightened his hat. “Maybe I’ll keep that tutor on for a few more years,” he mumbled as he turned away.

“What was that?” Brother Caleb called after him.

“I said, see ya later, Reverend,” he lied as he walked out of the yard.

He had tried so desperately to forget Leanna, the woman who had walked out on him, leaving him and their daughter alone. She’d broken his heart and made him lose faith in everything and everyone.

Left him feeling so alone.

Everyone had told him that her dying just weeks after she’d left was a result of her sins, that God had punished her for what she’d done and had taken her life.

And that was the biggest reason he was angry now. God had taken her away before he had a chance to get her back.

Now her sister was coming.

The way Bobby Joe figured it, the Butlers were the reason that she had left in the first place. They never thought he was good enough, and Winston Butler never missed an opportunity to let him know it.

Leanna must have left because the old man had gotten to her at last.

He didn’t want anything to do with the Butlers. And while he didn’t know why Susannah wanted to live in the same town as he did, he was going to stay out of her way.

Forgetting. . .was going to be a lot harder now.