Faithful to Her Heart's Wish
AN INSPIRATIONAL ROMANCE NOVEL
GRACE CLEMENS
Copyright © 2021 by Grace Clemens
All Rights Reserved.
This book may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the publisher.
In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher.
Table of Contents
Free Exclusive Gift
Sign up for my mailing list to be notified of hot new releases and get my latest Full-Length Novel “To Win Her Pure Heart” (available only to my subscribers) for FREE!
Click the link or enter it into your browser
http://graceclemens.com/pure-heart/
Faithful to Her Heart's Wish
Introduction
Imogen Brown has a comfortable life but her pure heart can’t rest while others are suffering. On a regular basis, she voluntarily helps families living at the nearby Tent City against the wishes of her own prejudiced father. When she falls in love with a young migrant, though, the chasm between loyalty and passion threatens to overwhelm her.
Does she have the courage to defy her father’s command for love?
Manny Ortega's ankle injury unexpectedly changes the course of his life, leaving him bedridden and unable to care for himself. To his fortune, a sudden ray of hope is found, when Imogen offers to nurse him. While he is getting better and better by her healing touch, he can no longer ignore the spark he feels for her. But when he finds out that she is the daughter of a wealthy and bigoted man, he is devastated.
Does he have what it takes to fight for his only chance at happiness in this hostile new world?
Will Imogen and Manny live up to their oaths of undying love? Will that prove enough to survive the disastrous storm and keep their hearts united?
Prologue
It was a hot, still night in California, with thunder rumbling in the distance and lightning crashing through the sky miles and miles away. Although the sun was down and the people should be sleeping, Imogen couldn’t even get a wink.
If it was her own fault, she wouldn’t have been as upset. But it wasn’t her fault. It was the noise coming from the saloon across the street and down the block. That was coupled with the loud ramblings and slurred warbling of the drunken cowboys outside the saloon, walking home or to wherever they would hang their hat for the night.
Imogen Brown was a young woman of twenty-four and enjoyed having a good time as much as any other person. But when there was so much disturbance, she couldn’t plug her ears with anything at all to keep the sound out; it was so much worse. All she wanted was to sleep. She had things to do and places to go the next day and didn’t want to be exhausted the whole time. Her father wouldn’t like seeing her that way either.
It wasn’t the first time, and unfortunately, it wouldn’t be the last. Imogen missed when her hometown of Bryantsville, California, was just a small one-hotel town that never attracted much attention.
Now, it had grown to nearly two thousand people. It was almost frightening and would have been if Imogen wasn’t a bold, outgoing woman with a talkative nature. She was smart and friendly and got along with everyone.
Now there were people in Bryantsville she didn’t even know. The fact shamed her, but what could she do? There were just too many people moving.
Imogen slid out of her bed and walked to the window to look out over the main street. Her great-great-grandfather had helped establish this little town nearly 70 years ago at the beginning of the 19th century. By 1889, the town was much bigger than the dozen families that started it.
She was happy living with her father in one of the first mansion cottages established in Bryantsville. Her ancestors built the unique house right there on the main road. She couldn’t imagine what the other families must have thought, but she did find it quite amusing.
The house wasn’t much wider than the other shops and houses on the road at 30 feet, but the unique thing about Imogen’s home was how long it was. It stretched out 300 feet in length, cutting through the middle of what would have been an alleyway behind the shops built on that side of the road. Fortunately, there were only residences built to the right of Imogen and shops to the left.
Still, Imogen was aware that the length of the house was a constant irritant, a thorn in the side of the residents of Bryantsville. That’s why she thought the original residents probably had been too.
She pressed her fingers to the bottom of the window and pushed it up so she could lean out. The first thing she did was lift her chin and close her eyes, breathing in the night’s cool, fresh air.
She heard raucous laughter, followed by hooting and whistling from a quad of men stumbling by holding each other up. One had been tilting his head back to drink from the bottle in his hand and spotted her.
“Girlie!” two of them shouted at the same time. They looked and pointed at each other and then burst out laughing, falling together. The one with the bottle in his hand tripped his way toward the front door of her house, and she leaned out further to yell at him.
“Go on home, you! My father won’t let you in here, and you aren’t welcome here! Go home to your family!”
Imogen stepped back and slammed her window down. She could still hear them out there screaming for her to come back and wished she’d never leaned out the window in the first place.
She dropped down on her bed and crossed her arms over her chest to sulk. She was wide awake. It wasn’t going to be a good day the next day.
It was bad enough she had to deal with a father who had a short temper and an authoritarian attitude. She didn’t need his berating because she would be yawning all day. He could sleep through this racket. It wasn’t Imogen’s fault that she was a light sleeper.
Sometimes she wondered if her mother had a calming effect on Jacob or if she’d had to deal with him the way he was like she did. She’d died in childbirth, taking with her the perfectly formed baby boy that would have been the perfect brother for ten-year-old Imogen.
She’d been taking care of her father’s household ever since, growing up the moment she lost her mother. She’d never be allowed to live a normal life or have a good childhood. She was working the day after it happened.
Imogen finally laid back down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling.
Please, God, she prayed, help me sleep.