Laura Frantz Quotes

What I get fearful about the future, I look back and see how faithful God has been.

Across the way there lies a wee lass, no' yet five years old, suffering from a fever. Her name is Sadie Floyd. I want you tae go with me tae see her.

Fear was never far away. She'd felt its cold clutch since childhood.

Though sympathy tugged at her, Sophie's imagination made fearsome leaps. The grieving widower. The destitute governess. A motherless child. It had all the makings of a scintillating novel.

So Captain Jack's come a-courtin'." Her hands stilled on the basket. "Who?" "The tall Shawnee who come by your cabin." The tall one. Lael felt a small surge of triumph at learning his name. Captain Jack. Oddly, she felt no embarrassment. Lifting her shoulders in a slight shrug, she continued pulling the vines into a tight circle. "He come by, but I don't know why." "Best take a long look in the mirror, then." Lael's eyes roamed the dark walls. Ma Horn didn't own one. "Beads and a blanket, was it?" She nodded and looked back down. "I still can't figure out why some Shawnee would pay any mind to a white girl like me." Ma Horn chuckled, her face alight in the dimness. "Why, Captain Jack's as white as you are." "What?" she blurted, eyes wide as a child's. Ma Horn's smile turned sober. "He's no Indian, Shawnee or otherwise, so your pa says. He was took as a child from some-wheres in North Carolina. All he can remember of his past life is his white name - Jack.

All she had left was faith. Belief. God Himself.

But there's another reason you can't go. You still haven't told me about your trip to Tennessee." A sudden spark seemed to light his keen eyes. "I wanted to tell you, but you didn't come, even when I gave you back your bed." She looked up, full of wonder. "You wanted me to come upstairs?" "You know I wouldn't hurt you ... dishonor you." "I - I know you wouldn't ... but ... being alone with you ... like that ... " She faltered and looked away, a furious blush staining her face. "It's not the proper way," he finished for her. She merely nodded, trying to start sewing again, but instead making a knot of her thread. He said quietly, "Sometimes I think you're still afraid of me." She looked up at him again and wished she hadn't. His eyes held hers with a startling intensity, as if daring her to deny it. She got up abruptly, nearly spilling her sewing onto the floor. "I made some broth," she said. "You'll need to regain your strength. And I'll have to see to your shoulder.

As I told you, I'm not the settlement midwife. I've not birthed one baby." "But you are an herbalist." "I suppose I am. The woods and Ma Horn have been my teachers since I was a girl." She looked away from him, embarrassed. Here she was, considering him a quack, and he was unraveling her own lack of expertise fast as a spool of thread. "I'm finding the settlers here a superstitious lot. I dinna doubt you are much the same." She sat up straighter. "What do you mean?" "Axes under the bed tae cut the pain of childbirth. Garlic charms and spells. Boiling beaver tails tae cure snakebite. No' tae mention the misuse of useful herbs." Her own face clouded. "I do none of those things." He looked doubtful. "Prove it." "How do you expect me to do that?" His steely eyes held a challenge. "Work alongside me.

In the morning, he had to shake her awake. When she saw him leaning over her, shirtless, his dark hair loose and disheveled, her first feeling was one of wonder. She'd dreamed she was asleep atop her feather tick, not the hard ground, and certainly not with a husband. "You're beautiful awake," he said with a knowing smile. "But you're even more beautiful asleep.

You've got to get out from under that burden of believing a lie. Folks you care about get cut down, so you stop caring, stop letting folks in.

Please, I don't want to fall in love with you. Aye, he could honor that. But she'd not said anything about him falling in love with her.

But home wasn't a place, she was coming to realize. Home was family. Home was right here, right now. With these God-given people.

Run away with me - tonight." Above them the brilliant moon beckoned, promising to light their way. Her voice sounded queer and far off, weak with longing and despair. "No runnin' off like Ma done, Simon.

He turned back to her. "And may I have the pleasure of the first dance, Miss Rowan?" She gave him a slightly wide-eyed stare, while his eyes narrowed and crinkled at the corners, full of mischief. Mercy . . . he does work quite a spell.

The truth is Fort Endeavor needs you." Confused, she shifted in her seat, darting a look at him. "I need you," he amended quietly. "Not just your services as scrivener. I need your goodness and gentleness and strength. Sometimes I think you're the only one I can trust, even above my own officers.

You were not much afraid when I went after you," he said with a little smile. "Oh, I was afraid," she confessed, picking up some pine knots. "But then I saw that it was you ...

Lael." Her hands stilled at the sound. The name was spoken like a caress, so soft she was certain only she had heard. When she turned, Simon grabbed her wrist. He was lucid now, looking up at her from his mattress on the floor. "It is you. I heard - " He winced from the sudden movement, and his shoulder began to bleed afresh. "I heard - but I misdoubted you'd stay - but you come back - to me.

A heart is a fine thing to have in a cold world

His fiddle weeps, she thought, yet it wooed her with its sweetness, warm as a lover's touch.

War had stolen much, including an appreciation of the seasons.

He said a bit more gently, "Your father was often in this room. It seems right having you here." "Bella will wonder if I tarry." "Let her wonder, Roxie. Let them all wonder." His tone was so mellow, so inviting, she felt her dilemma play plainly across her face. "I won't offer you a drink, if that's what you're worried about.

When you meet the man you want to be with for life, you'll want to run to him and not away from him.

She could no longer remember what Ambrose looked like, or smelled like, or was like. All she knew was Cassius Clayton McLinn. All she wanted began and ended with him.

Some matters you have little control over. Love is one of them.

Are you alone?" she asked, glancing around. Never before had she seen him without a half dozen or so other Shawnee. "No. With you," he said, eyes alight. She smiled, warmed by his teasing.

All will be well.

So say the fairy tales.

Pray for me Ellie. Never Stop loving Me.

-she loved Lily Cate like her own, and for this night, this moment, she would be her mother, even though there was no guarantee of tomorrow.

You shouldn't come here alone, nekanoh." Startled, she turned. Red Shirt stood behind her, his hazel eyes on her and everything else at once. Was he remembering how she'd nearly drowned? "Nekanoh?" She echoed the strange word back to him. "It means 'friend' in Shawnee." Did he say that to soothe her, in case she felt frightened alone with him? Standing on the bank beside him, she was struck by how tall he was. Why, she didn't even reach his shoulder. Even outdoors he was physically imposing, dominating the woods as well as the cabin. "I didn't hear you," she said, then flushed at her foolishness. It was his habit not to be heard. A flicker of amusement seemed to lighten his intensity. "I know. I've followed you since you left the barn.

Morrow ... my heart is on the ground." The simple Shawnee phrase rent her heart. She simply bent her head as he whispered, "Remember how much I love you. Remember love bears all things.

Haste and panic were poor traveling companions, and this trip he'd reaped the consequences in spades.

Christ's kingdom has no frontier, ye ken.

He's not come again for some time now, though he promised to return. But truly, what does it matter?" "It matters more than you know." The poignancy in his voice hurt her, and she felt the urge to stem his words with her fingertips, but he kept on. "I ken one day he'll come for you and you'll simply disappear. Withoot a word tae anyone. Withoot a trace." Put this way, it sounded so selfish, so unfeeling, if it ever did happen. "I - he - " she began, then stopped, contemplating all the uncertainties before her. His voice dropped lower, yet more a whisper. "You're needed here, Lael. The settlement needs you. I need you.

She would stay strong. She would remember the promises in Scripture. She would hope and pray and not give away.

You call yourself a gentleman, yet you stare at me." "I never called myself a gentleman." "You are a gentleman and you still stare." "If I do, the fault is your own. You are a complicated lass, Lael Click." She set the dishes down with a clatter. Complicated? She wouldn't ask him to explain himself. She didn't have to. He leaned back against a porch post, stretched his legs, and crossed his shiny black boots. "You went tae one of the finest finishing schools in the colonies, yet I find you barefoot and bonnetless and making social calls tae Indians, wi' your hair down tae boot. And unchaperoned, as weel.

Why did you come back? 'Tis not safe." "I came back to finish what we last started." Did he mean their near embrace in the barn? Before Pa came in? His mouth was warm against her ear, his fingers stroking her hair, which frayed at the touch of his callused hand. "I came back to ask you to be my wife." The words, so long wished for, were every bit as sweet as she'd hoped they'd be. But here in this shadowed corner, with Pa so ill ... "Do you love me? Or do you feel pity for me, alone, almost fatherless?" "Not pity, Morrow. Love. The love between a man and a woman." Her lips parted in a sort of wonder. "Have you ever been in love?" "Not till now ... not till you." "Then how can you be ... sure?" "I know my mind, my heart.

Did she have to be so downright fetching in her refusal?
Taking Annie back, he struck a sterner pose in order to keep all comers at bay.

She pressed trembling fingers to her lips. Such torment, all this wondering. Where was God amidst such anguish? Would it drive Seamus away from Him? Or bring him closer? His fierce reserve left her more undone. He seemed so strong. Unbending. Or had war so hardened him that he was able to stay standing while inwardly he was coming apart?
His low voice was raked with exhaustion, 'I have known pain. But I have never known pain like this.

was a mighty daring stunt you pulled outside fort walls. You ain't been back two months, and you're the talk of the settlement again. Only this time the tattle's mostly good, considerin' you saved all our hides." "You can thank Captain Jack," she told him, careful not to look at him overlong. His expression turned almost wistful. "Captain Jack, is it? You never let your hair down for me, Lael.

Every house, to be a true home, needs a mistress.

Sophie would be the first to share his home. His life. Normalcy. As normal as two broken people could make it. Guilt nagged him that they were coming together on such odd terms. Sophie Menzies deserved far more. He was getting far more than he deserved.

Sometimes I -- I feel caught between the present and the past. Waiting. Hoping.

I'm no longer your concern." "You've been my concern ever since you were six years old, come to fort up with me. You're in my blood, Lael - a forever and endurin' part of me!

Promise me, Roxie," he said again. The way he said her name - low and slow and sweet - was like nothing she'd ever heard. She could feel his eyes on her in such a way it was as if he was tracing the oval of her face with his fingers. And all her halfhearted talk of leaving turned to ashes. "I promise.

Hester kept her company by bringing her meals and tea, fussing over Rosebud, washing Morrow's clothes, and doing her hair as if she was the colonel's lady. "Colonel Clark is sure taken wi' you," she said. "Neither man nor beast ever talks back to that man, but you shore put him in his place over that bad business at Fort Randolph. And lo and behold, I think he liked it. But for one little thing." Morrow looked up from nursing Rosebud. "He just can't figure out why a beautiful woman like yo'self would settle for a savage.

He sat down on the bed and gathered her up in his arms as if she were a child. Like Abby, she thought woozily. Like Papa had with her so long ago. Weak, she succumbed to the heady scent of him, gave in to the unfamiliar feel of his arms and solidness of his chest as he cradled her.

Morrow . . . let me love you.

Lord, soften his arrogance and temper and intemperate habits. Make him a man after Your own heart . . . because somehow, against my will and surely Yours, he's stolen mine.

I didn't want to frighten you. I only tell you now because if you leave, I cannot guarantee your safety even with a guard posted.
Then I'll take extra care myself and rely on the Lord.

He'd have to keep a careful watch on her once the polemen came ashore. These free-spirited Frenchmen, whom he liked well enough, became absolute devils when drunk, their antics so spectacularly sinful they made his most hardened soldiers blush.

She stared at herself in the looking glass, wishing for another face, another reflection.

Let honesty be as the breath of thy soul. Benjamin Franklin

That she was thirsty for heavenly things, there could be no doubt.

You're uncommon tall for a lass." Surprised, she smiled. "Do you always speak your mind so?" He nodded. "You'll find I do." "Anything else?" "Aye," he replied, coming around the press to close the distance between them. "Do you always court trouble, Miss Click, or does it just seem tae follow you where'er you go?

Captain Jack said he'd take some of you if he couldn't have all of you," he said, the mirth in his eyes making light of her ire. "And you let him?" "Seems a small price to pay to keep you." "When? How?" she sputtered. "Near dawn, with his scalping knife." "While I slept?

As soon as she set foot outside, she could hear the empty conversation and laughter resume. Like sounding brass and tinkling cymbals.