Dreams and Promises: Love, Loss and Redemption in a Land of Infinite Promise Read online

  Contents

  FOREWORD

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  COPYRIGHT

  RENDEZVOUS

  RENDEZVOUS

  HISTORICAL NOTES

  ABOUT ANNA

  MORE ANNA MARKLAND

  PRAIRIE STORM

  CHAPTER 1~THE WELL

  CHAPTER 2~TOWN

  CHAPTER 3~THE VISIT

  CHAPTER 4~THE DANCE

  CHAPTER 5~THE PROPOSAL

  CHAPTER 6~THE WEDDING

  CHAPTER 7~THE WAR

  CHAPTER 8~SPANISH INFLUENZA

  CHAPTER 9~BURY THE DEAD

  CHAPTER 10~JAKE

  CHAPTER 11~LIFE RENEWED

  HISTORICAL FOOTNOTE

  ABOUT SYLVIE

  MORE SYLVIE GRAYSON

  WHEN THE BOYS CAME HOME

  WHEN THE BOYS CAME HOME

  HISTORICAL NOTES

  MORE ALICE VALDAL

  CONNECT WITH ALICE

  WITH GLOWING HEARTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  HISTORICAL NOTES

  MORE REGGI ALLDER

  ONCE UPON AN ATTIC

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ABOUT LIZANN

  MORE LIZANN CARSON

  MY BABY WROTE ME A LETTER

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  AFTERWORD

  MORE JACQUIE BIGGAR

  Dreams and Promises includes six short stories and novellas written by authors who live in beautiful British Columbia.

  It’s our way of honoring Canada’s Sesquicentennial.

  Some of Canada’s major cities were founded in the seventeenth century, but July 1st 2017 marks 150 years since our country became a Confederation.

  Our stories range from the era of the fur trade, a commercial enterprise that opened up the Canadian and American West, to present day James Bay, a thriving neighborhood in the garden city of Victoria.

  Among our heroes are a World War One soldier suffering from amnesia, an RCAF pilot from World War Two, and a pioneer prairie farmer.

  A British war bride, a suffragette and a modern-day university student are just three of our heroines.

  We have compiled the collection in chronological order.

  Our stories play out in a land of infinite promise and sometimes heartbreaking challenges.

  Thank you for helping us celebrate our nation’s milestone birthday.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  JACQUIE BIGGAR is a USA Today bestselling author of Romantic Suspense who loves to write about tough, alpha males who know what they want, that is until they're gob-smacked by heroines who are strong, contemporary women willing to show them what they really need is love.

  ANNA MARKLAND has penned more than thirty bestselling medieval, Viking and Highland romances. She’s addicted to cryptic crosswords and genealogy and she’s a fool for cats.

  REGGI ALLDER is a romantic suspense and contemporary romance author who enjoys subjecting her characters to real-life ordeals before they find their forever loves. Reggi lives with her own hero and two furry pets.

  LIZANN CARSON cheerfully conjures up her own fairy-tale life, writing stories of romance and fantasy (often with a humorous twist). You might catch her hiking, quilting, or watching her cats sleep.

  SYLVIE GRAYSON writes romantic suspense in contemporary stories such as The Lies He Told Me, and sci/fi fantasy in Khandarken Rising:The Last War series.

  History fascinates ALICE VALDAL. She spends hours happily doing research for her historical novels. When not writing she gardens, knits, plays with cats and does her best to avoid housework.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of these authors. All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the authors.

  All fictional characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the authors and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the authors and all incidents are pure invention.

  My Baby Wrote Me A Letter © Copyright Jacquie Biggar 2017

  Rendezvous © Copyright Anna Markland 2017

  Prairie Storm © Copyright Sylvie Grayson 2017

  When The Boys Came Home © Copyright Alice Valdal 2017

  With Glowing Hearts © Copyright Reggi Allder 2017

  Once Upon An Attic © Copyright Elizabeth Carson 2017

  RENDEZVOUS

  A SHORT STORY

  BY

  ANNA MARKLAND

  Internationally Bestselling Author

  RENDEZVOUS

  North West Company Trading Post,

  Fort William, Upper Canada, 1815

  “Finally,” Nindaanis exclaimed as the cream in the churn at last began to show signs of turning to butter.

  What was once an easy task seemed to take more effort with the added weight of Gabriel in the cradleboard strapped to her back. The door of the dairy had been fitted with a muslin screen, as had the two small windows, but there was no breeze to alleviate the oppressive early July heat.

  “Wait till he gets bigger,” Wenona replied. “Barely two months old and look at the size of him.”

  “Like his papa,” Nindaanis said proudly, remembering Henri’s impressive muscles.

  “Sleepy, you mean?” Wenona teased.

  Nindaanis had to admit her son seemed to sleep soundly in between feedings, but the insult to the babe’s father wasn’t to be tolerated. “My Henri is a hard worker. You’ll see when he comes for the Great Rendezvous. He will have more furs to trade than all the rest of men who’ve wintered in the west.”

  Wenona gathered up several half-pound blocks of butter she’d wrapped in cheesecloth and headed for the ice-house behind the dairy. “Your Henri? We’ll see.”

  Nindaanis stuck out her tongue at her sarcastic cousin. No sooner had Wenona left than the door of the dairy squeaked open. The spring hinge caused it to snap shut behind the gentleman who’d entered. The draught was welcome, but short-lived. Nevertheless, she smiled and bobbed a curtsey. “Good day, Master Donaldson.”

  She liked Ian Donaldson. Unlike most of the North West Company clerks, he was always friendly and polite. She hoped he hadn’t seen her with her tongue sticking out. For some reason she wanted him to think her pretty, though it was well known white men
didn’t associate with Métis women, except for sexual congress. Nindaanis’s skin was as white as his, but she’d inherited her Ojibwa mother’s thick, black hair.

  “Good day, Nindaanis,” Mr. Donaldson replied in his heartwarming Scottish brogue.

  The clerks—most of them dour Scotsmen—paid scant attention to Métis women and certainly never remembered native names.

  The tall redhead’s ruddy complexion seemed particularly flushed today. She put it down to the heat—and to stringent North West Company rules that obliged clerks and gentlemen to wear frock-coats, waistcoats, cravats and beaver top-hats when out and about in the trading post, even at the height of summer.

  “How fares Gabriel today?” he asked.

  The weather and the exertion of churning the butter were having an effect on her own body temperature as well, and being alone with Ian Donaldson was strangely unsettling. Sweat trickled down her spine. Her normally facile tongue became stuck to the roof of her mouth. She wiped an arm across her forehead. “Good. He’s asleep, I think.”

  “Let me take him for a wee while,” Ian said, reaching for the cradleboard.

  Wenona came out of the ice-house and raised an eyebrow when she saw what was happening. Her cousin was aware that eighteen years ago a voyageur who’d come to Fort William for the Great Rendezvous had left Nindaanis’s mother with child and never returned.

  Working for the North West Company was a hazardous occupation. Starvation, illness, and accidents claimed the lives of many men on the long canoe trips. Maybe the voyageur father was dead, but her mother had chosen to believe he’d abandoned them and cautioned her daughter never to become involved with a transient fur trader.

  Caught up in the excitement of last year’s Rendezvous, the first she’d been allowed to attend, Nindaanis hadn’t listened. She’d given in to the seductive charms of Henri Boudalon only to discover after he left that she was pregnant.

  Throughout the long and difficult winter she clung to the hope that spring would see her child safely delivered. After Gabriel’s birth she prayed that come the summer she and his father would reunite at the annual Rendezvous. She didn’t want her son to grow up fatherless, as she had.

  Henri didn’t know of Gabriel’s existence, but she was certain he’d propose marriage once he knew. He’d professed sorrow at leaving and promised to return. She mustn’t give rise to any doubts about the babe’s parentage, no matter how much she might daydream about Ian Donaldson.

  Company clerks sometimes took Métis women as their mistresses, but mixed marriages were rare. Still she felt a strange thrill when Ian lifted the cradleboard from her shoulders and propped it up on the scarred wooden table. It was good to have a man’s help.

  “He’s a grand lad,” he said, smoothing the dark hair off the child’s forehead.

  Gabriel smiled in his sleep.

  Ian chuckled. “He’ll break some hearts when he grows up.”

  “Yes,” she replied. “His papa will be very proud of him.”

  She was dismayed when Ian's smile turned to a frown.

  “Did you come for something in particular, Mr. Donaldson?” Wenona asked pointedly.

  Ian's blush deepened. “Er, yes,” he replied, straightening his shoulders. “I’m tallying the items needed for the régales. Only a week to go until the Great Rendezvous. We dinna want to run out of the traditional rewards and have disgruntled hivernants and voyageurs on our hands.”

  “Indeed,” Wenona replied coldly. “They cause enough trouble as it is.”

  Ian nodded. “I’ve heard they can be boisterous braggarts, but I suppose they are entitled to boast of their feats.”

  As he spoke, he took a small notebook and the stub of a pencil from his inside pocket. The clerks used the pencils imported from England until there was practically nothing left of them. It was a measure of Ian's standing among the employees of the North West Company that he carried one in his coat pocket.

  He cleared his throat. “In any event, we only have to put up with the trappers and traders for a week or two each year, and where would the company be without the furs and supplies they bring us?”

  Wenona pouted.

  Ian didn’t seem to notice. “We’ve sufficient stocks of brandy, and the baker assures me he’ll have enough four-pound loaves ready. Just the butter to count now.”

  Wenona gestured to the door of the ice-house. “Go ahead.”

  ~~*~~

  Ian inhaled the cold, stale air of the ice-house, hoping the chill would cool the arousal that swelled in his trousers every time he got anywhere near Nindaanis. He’d first set eyes on her shortly after his arrival in early spring, and been immediately smitten. Now he went out of his way to make sure their paths crossed. Ridiculous as it was to wear a frock-coat in the sweltering heat, the garment had at least hidden the uncomfortable swelling at his groin.

  Trying to get Nindaanis’s lovely face and tempting figure out of his mind, he put a hand on one shelf and perused the blocks of butter wrapped in cheesecloth. “Are these salted?” he asked.

  Wenona pointed to a separate shelf with about two dozen smaller blocks. “All save these. The gentlemen prefer to salt their own.”

  “Yes, of course,” he replied, doodling circles with dots in the center in his notebook, mortified when he realized they looked alarmingly like breasts with dark, dark nipples.

  He made a futile effort to erase them with his thumb, then closed the book quickly. “Er, you’ll make sure the gentlemen partners are supplied with salt when the time comes.”

  She shook her head. “They use the salt imported from England. The Dry Goods Store takes care of such luxuries.”

  He’d known that. Wenona likely thought him an incompetent nitwit. Reluctant to reopen the book, he stowed the count away in his head. “All tallied here. I’m confident you’ll have the remaining half-pounds ready in time.”

  She scowled. “You can depend on it.”

  He hurried out through the dairy. Nindaanis was still churning, the rhythmic up and down movements of the plunger putting him too much in mind of…

  Mumbling an abrupt farewell, he left, gritting his teeth as the door slammed behind him.

  He walked back along the busy pathway to the Counting House, wondering what the devil was wrong with him. The innumerable mosquito bites that had nigh on driven him mad during the wet spring were perhaps just now having an adverse effect. How else to explain his infatuation with a Métis woman—one with an illegitimate child no less. He’d made discreet enquiries and discovered Nindaanis was the daughter of an Ojibwa woman and a voyageur who’d left the annual Rendezvous and never returned from Montreal the following year.

  Despite her situation, she’d named her bairn after one of God’s angels. Not that Ian believed in angels, having been brought up in a strict presbyterian family. It was more curious since many Ojibwa hadn’t wholeheartedly embraced the Christian faith.

  His parents would be mortified if they were aware he was contemplating marriage to a half-breed.

  He thought back to his home in Scotland. His family wasn’t rich by any means, but the few household servants they had were respectful. Not like Wenona and many of the other Métis and native women. Anyone would think they were the masters here. There was never any polite Yes, my lord, or Yes,sir, or After you, your honor, just a surly You can depend on it.

  He stopped dead in his tracks. As the youngest in his family, his prospects in Scotland had been few. He’d come to Canada in search of a new life and new opportunities, lured by tales of the intrepid Simon Fraser and Alexander MacKenzie. Yet he was expecting things to be exactly as they were back home. After all, this vast land was populated entirely by native peoples before the advent of Europeans.

  Some of the gentlemen partners and clerks had taken Métis women as wives. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility. He’d simply have to seek the Company’s permission. What else was a man to do if he wanted a family? Wait until white women ventured into the wilds of Upper Canada?
He’d be an old man.

  It wasn’t simply a question of expediency, though. He wanted Nindaanis, babe and all, and longed to sift his fingers through the inky silk of her hair—once he’d freed it from the long, long braid.

  However, she seemed determined to reconnect with Gabriel’s father, though the wretch had obviously abandoned her to spend the winter tending his trap lines and trading with natives in the west. He supposed it was only natural she feel that way, but he found himself harboring the unchristian hope that the hivernant would drown before his canoe ever reached Fort William.

  ~~*~~

  Fort William was a place of frenzied activity and anticipation in the days leading up to the arrival of the first voyageurs from the east. A hue and cry went up when the Canot de Maître was sighted, and everyone rushed to the banks of the Kaministiqua to welcome the dozen paddlers from Montreal.

  There was much to celebrate. They and their cargo had survived a thousand mile journey with more than thirty portages. The fort depended heavily on the trading goods and provisions they brought with them. The first canoe often carried one of the company’s major shareholders. The annual meeting of the Grand Council was the most important event of the Rendezvous.

  Nindaanis didn’t follow the crowd to meet the first arrivals. She took the opportunity to enjoy the temporary peace and quiet of the deserted bakery where she’d spent most of the week kneading dough. It was easier on the back than churning, though the ovens made the heat worse. Gabriel had chosen this particular week to rouse from his slumbers and seemed to be awake every minute of the day and night. “I think you sense your papa will soon be here,” she teased him.

  Rumor had it that the first hivernants would arrive from the west in a day or two. She resolved to conserve her energy and enthusiasm for that day. It was important to impress her future husband.

  The baker was the first to return from the river. “Great excitement,” he said, putting on his apron as the door slammed behind him. “You didn’t want to see?”