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A Rose Blooms Twice (A Prairie Heritage, Book 1)

By Vikki Kestell

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Chapter 1

The wilderness and the
dry land shall be glad;
the desert shall rejoice
and blossom like the rose
and the autumn crocus.
(Isaiah 35:1, AMP)

Rose glanced up and saw James watching her. Their eyes met and held, and while the carriage jounced and swayed, they smiled, tired and content.

James’ birthday party had been wonderful. In the fading light, Rose glanced fondly from James’ relaxed and satisfied face to each of the children: Jeffrey was teasing his younger sister, Glory, her chubby six-year-old cheeks dimpled in laughter, while baby Clara bounced on her daddy’s knee singing “Ride a pony! Ride a pony!” softly. Jeff and Glory burst out in strains of “Happy Birthday to You” making James chuckle in appreciation. Clara crowed a late “To Yew!” after every line, and they all laughed.

Rose shivered a little as the temperature outside sank a few more degrees. Bundled in warm clothes up to their eyes, the children didn’t seem to notice the cold. Only a few minutes ago, while Vincent, their driver, had waited outside the door, Rose had bustled Glory into her coat and warm hat, making sure she had her mittens. James had held baby Clara until Glory’s last button was done.
“Goodbye, Mother. Thank you for the party; it was perfect as usual, just like its hostess,” James had declared, winking and grinning.

Rose’s mother had acknowledged the compliment in her usual gracious manner. “You know how much pleasure it gave me, James! And don’t be flirting. What will your children think? Well, you had better be going. It will do none of you any good to be out in this miserable cold very long. Goodbye, dears.”

She had kissed Rose, her son-in-law, and then each of the children. “My kittens,” she liked to call them. Jeffrey mumbled to his father, “If Grandma has to call me a baby name, it should at least be puppy!” Being the oldest, he had been ready and fidgeting some minutes.

As they had crossed from the doorway to the carriage, the wind had whipped them without mercy until they were tucked into the coach and Vincent had the horses pulling them down the drive.

Yes, everything had gone well. Mother had been a superb hostess, as usual insisting on being allowed to prepare the celebration for James’ thirty-eighth birthday party.

How very odd that he can be that age, Rose thought. He was only twenty-five when we married, and yet he seems no older at all!

“But you are thirty-two,” an inner voice whispered, “and no longer a fresh-faced girl.” The thought irritated her, and she pushed it aside. Thirteen years of marriage and three children had made a difference, yes, but she was still young. Not willow slender anymore, true, but “round in all the right places” according to James, and his was the single opinion she minded.

But what looked back in her mirror distressed her. The golden blonde hair that had framed her blushing cheeks as a girl was dull ash now, stylishly coiled and curled around her head, yes, but her cheeks, too, had lost their glow. The overall result was a rather colorless, even sallow, one. Oh, if only her brows and lashes had darkened, too, but the solemn gray eyes were the only real color in her face.

Mercifully, the children all took after their father, each with honey-brown curls and James’ gentle hazel eyes and bright cheeks. “Such frivolous concerns,” she chided herself. “A good life is too precious for fretting over what cannot be changed—and is inconsequential. No triviality could ever mar the perfect joy of having a wonderful family and a happy home.”

Her musings turned back to the party. Even Roger and Julia had been civil, almost pleasant tonight, for a change. James’ younger brother had always seemed to resent that James, the older son, had inherited the Brownlee family home some years ago. It would be Jeffrey’s one day too, Rose remembered fondly.

Altogether, with her brother, Tom, and Abigail, his lovely bride, it had been a memorable evening.

Tom and Abbie had made a happy announcement tonight, too. They would be blessed with a baby in late summer! Rose smiled in anticipation. She would be Aunt Rose! That would be sweet. And a cousin for the children!

Roger and Julia didn’t have children. “They wouldn’t much fit our lifestyle,” Julia had mentioned once in a mocking tone.

“Mummy, I’m sleepy,” Glory whispered.

“Come lay your head on my lap, love,” Rose whispered back. Jeffrey and Glory traded sides in the coach; Clara stayed on Daddy’s lap but cuddled now rather than bounced. Outside, the frigid January wind blew, and Rose was glad that Vincent was well sheltered in the driver’s box.

She pulled her own long, heavy cloak about her and stroked a curl of Glory’s sweet, honey-touched hair peeping out from her bonnet. In honesty, the weather was too inclement for them to be out, but January 6 only came once a year, and James rarely unbent from his heavy work schedule except for a holiday.

They seemed to be alone on the dark country road. In addition to the freezing temperatures this evening, the bitter wind had driven and beaten the wet snow into icy drifts and glazed the road.

“Only a half-hour more, son,” James encouraged Jeffrey. The boy began nodding, half asleep in the corner by his father.

They entered their quiet town with its cobbled streets. The river was just ahead, and the Brownlee family home a few miles beyond. The team’s hooves rang with a hallow sound as they mounted the bridge. Below, the river was choked with black, heaving ice floes. Only last week an unseasonable thaw, accompanied by a warm wind from the south, had caused the river to break up. Now with the cold pressing in, the rushing water would soon freeze over again.

The carriage’s progress was slow going up the bridge’s incline because of the unsure footing for the horses, but they labored, sturdy and strong. Across the bridge they trotted now, another lone carriage passing them in the other direction.

Rose looked up and saw James watching her again. He smiled, and she warmed to his look.

The carriage sped down the other side of the arched bridge, and Vincent called to the horses, reining them in, for the ice was treacherous on the downside incline.

Without warning a horse screamed and the carriage lurched. One of the horses had fallen on the slick cobbles! James threw open the door just as the back end of the coach began to swing, making a wide, sliding arc across the breadth of the bridge. Vincent was shouting, panic in his voice. The carriage slammed against the stout railing at the bridge’s edge with an ominous cracking.

Inside the carriage, unable to see what was happening, the children were shrieking, and Glory fell to the floor. James, holding precariously to the door saw what was now inevitable—the railing was shattered, near to letting go, and the carriage was suspended over the torrent, only moments from disaster. Vincent stood in the box futilely whipping the team, but the horse still standing had no traction, and the far one was splayed on the ice, thrashing in panic.

Clara grasped at her daddy’s legs, and James stumbled over Glory on the floor. Hoarse with fear, he jerked Rose to her feet and to the doorway. “Jump!” he begged. They were hanging so deceptively near the levy.

Rose was frozen in terror, unable to look away from the pain and hopelessness on his face. James wrenched himself free from Clara’s grasp and, with one extraordinary effort, bodily vaulted Rose from the coach.

Then she was falling . . . Later she would never be sure if what she remembered was what she actually saw or if the horrible sounds she heard printed their own pictures forever in her mind.

The railing gave way. The carriage slid over the bridge’s edge, pulling with it the screaming team. Rose landed on the ice-strewn rocks of the levee at the water’s edge. She heard something inside herself snap and felt the painful stabs of icy water soaking her through as the current sucked and pulled.
Then she heard and felt nothing at all.

~~**~~

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