Title: Walls for the Wind
Author: Alethea Williams
Genre: Western historical
Synopsis:
Can an angel survive Hell on Wheels? When Kit Calhoun leaves
New York City with a train car full of
foundlings from the Immigrant Children’s Home, she has no clue she might end up
as adoptive mother to four of them in rip-roaring Cheyenne , Wyoming
The first time handsome Patrick Kelley spies Kit in
Excerpt:
“Frau Goff, you must listen,” she said softly. “Your son was
arrested by the constable. Helmut will not be coming home. Reverend Howe is
trying to convince the magistrate to release the boy into our custody, rather
than have him spend ten days in the public Juvenile Asylum under the influence
of the older, hardened hooligans incarcerated there. It was Helmut, Frau Goff,
who told us where to find you.”
At the news, the woman’s hand flew to her mouth. Her eyes
distant now even though they never left Kit’s face, she moaned, rocking the
little girl back and forth. “Ah, Gott in heaven, what shall we do now?” she
pleaded under her breath.
“You need to go to the hospital, Frau Goff,” Kit urged, even
though she knew the charity wards were full to bursting with sick and dying
immigrants. Reverend Howe, however, was prepared to use all his considerable
influence to convince the Baldwin sisters to take just these three more into
their already overburdened care.
“I cannot go to hospital.” The woman covered her mouth,
throat rasping as she coughed up more blood. Twin spots of fever-induced color
suffused her sallow cheeks. “Then Hannah would have no one.”
The woman’s hands lovingly kneaded the little girl. Kit
waited, fingertips resting on the woman’s arm. Puffs of vapor escaped the
child’s rosebud mouth, freezing as her warm breath hit the cold air. Hannah’s
eyelids drooped as she lay quietly now in her mother’s arms, and she blinked
sleepily.
“It makes no difference if I agree, yah? All you have to do
is wait. When I die,” the sick woman said in a dull rasp, “my children will
truly be left all alone.”
Kit swallowed the reply that wanted to spill from her lips,
words of false hope and promise that the woman would recover. Perhaps, with
time, good food, rest and a change of climate, there might have been a chance.
But as it was, destitute and starving and already ravaged by her illness, there
was in truth little the medical profession could do for Helga Goff.
“Will you sign?” Kit asked in German, fingers tightening on
the woman’s skeletal arm. Educated at the asylum in languages, as well as
painting and piano, at least some of her training stood her in good stead this
day. “Will you give us the opportunity to shepherd your children toward a
better life?”
The widow Goff studied Kit with burning eyes. “You will keep
Helmut and Hannah together?” she pleaded, also in her native tongue. “Brother
and sister always. You will not separate them? Make your solemn pledge to me
now, before Almighty God.”
“I assure you the asylum will educate them and find them a
home.”
“No! To you! To you alone will I give up my children.
Promise me they will be together. Always.” Her voice fading, the woman’s last
word ended on a sigh. Her small strength in defense of her children spent, her
head drooped toward her chest.
Kit craned her neck, looking frantically over her shoulder
to Reverend Howe for guidance. He held out his hands, palms up. “You have
chosen to do this work, Katherine.”
Finding no help from the bear of a man in the massive
greatcoat, Kit turned her gaze back toward the woman and child. Looking down on
the little girl’s soft, golden curls, she said, “Very well, Frau Goff. I
promise you that Helmut and Hannah will remain together.”
The sick woman raised her head. For an instant she searched
Kit’s face. Then apparently reading truth there, she reached unsteadily for the
pen that Reverend Howe had already dipped in ink. Her lips moved as she
struggled to read aloud in English:
This document
certifies that I am the mother and sole legal guardian of Helmut Goff, age
eight, and Hannah Goff, age two. I hereby willingly agree for the Immigrant
Children’s Asylum to provide them a home until they are of age. I further
promise never to interfere in any arrangements made on their behalf.
Once more she raised fever-bright eyes to Kit’s, as if seeking a way out of signing away her children. But both of them knew it was too late. There was no rescue in this world for Frau Helga Goff. Shoulders rounded in defeat, she lowered her eyes to the release form and signed in a spidery European hand.
Buy links:
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Western history has been the great
interest of my adult life. I've lived in Wyoming, Colorado, and Oregon.
Although an amateur historian, I am happiest researching different times and
places in the historical West. And while staying true to history, I try not to
let the facts overwhelm my stories. Story always comes first in my novels, and
plot arises from the relationships between my characters. I'm always open to
reader response to my writing.
Website: http://aletheawilliams.weebly.com/
Twitter: @ActuallyAlethea https://twitter.com/actuallyalethea
Amazon author page: http://www.amazon.com/Alethea-Williams/e/B0077CD2HW/
The Romance Reviews author page: http://www.theromancereviews.com/ActuallyAlethea
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