Prairie Storm Read Online Free PDF

Mrs. Nolan,” he began. “Truly, I do. But the fact is, I’ve got a starving baby here, and she’s got the means to feed him. Now, we’ve made a deal, this lady and I, and I aim to see that it’s honored.”
    â€œThat proves exactly what I was saying!” Madame Zahara exploded. “You are an arrogant, selfish—”
    â€œI am a man with a hungry baby and nobody to—”
    â€œExcuse me here,” Lily Nolan cut in. “ I’m the one who’ll be making the decision. Beatrice, this baby needs a fresh diaper, another feeding, and a good night’s sleep. I’m going to see that he gets it. And as for you, Preacher-man, you’d better start cooking up a humdinger of a sermon. It’s almost Sunday, and I’ll expect to find you over at the church reeling them in and emptying their pockets so you can pay my wages.”
    Eli swallowed hard as she turned and walked off toward the gaudy wagon of the traveling show. He didn’t like Lily Nolan. Didn’t like her at all. And sure as shootin’, he didn’t want her looking after little Samuel one more day than necessary.

    â€œYou’re such a teensy little fellow,” Lily murmured the next evening as baby Samuel regarded her solemnly. “But you’ve got big brown eyes and lots of hair. Where’d you get all that hair, huh? I think you’re strong enough that we might try to wash it tomorrow. Yes, sir, Mr. Samuel, you need a bath and some warm oil on your skin.” Lily had lovingly tended the tiny baby all through the night and today as well. After settling up with the irate customers, Beatrice had been pointedly ignoring Lily and her new little companion.
    As Lily stroked the baby’s cheek, he turned his head to the side and pressed his mouth against her hand. “I bet you’re hungry again, you fuzzy little caterpillar. What has that big ol’ preacher been feeding you? Mashed potatoes? And scrambled eggs, too? Glory be, no wonder you’re so skinny. Next time he tries a trick like that, you just spit those potatoes right back in his face.”
    She reflected on the handsome preacher and his bold sermonizing. What a contrast to the frantic look in his blue eyes when he was pleading with her to feed the baby he’d found. Truth to tell, she would gladly care for little Samuel and never take a penny. But she had enjoyed watching the man squirm.
    She sensed he was just like her father—held in high regard by the townsfolk, while they knew nothing of his true nature. She could picture her father marching into church with his head held high and his huge walrus mustache gleaming with wax. The grand gentleman, conductor of the Greater New England Symphony and minister of music at the First United Church of St. George, cut an imposing figure as he stood before the congregation and sang hymns in his melodic baritone.
    No one knew, of course, that this same man could use his voice to subjugate his wife until she was sobbing in humiliation. The huge hands that held a baton with such finesse could slam a child to the floor or swing a leather belt across a little girl’s bare flesh until it split open and began to bleed. The man who sang that “God is love; his mercy brightens all the path in which we rove” could turn on his family with hatred, rage, and unforgiving fury with a speed that rivaled the sudden flash of summer lightning.
    Always fearful, yet somehow always unprepared for her father’s wrath, Lily would crouch on the floor and cover her head until the storm of his anger had passed. And while he punished his daughter for the demons that lived in his own soul, she would journey to a secret place inside herself and listen to the sweet music in her heart.
    â€œForget me not, forget me never,” she sang softly as she cradled the nursing Samuel. “Till yonder sun shall set forever.”
    Only after she had escaped her father, only in