There is a mystery in Wildwood Creek's history, a mystery that affects Allie's present...
Wildwood Creekby Lisa Wingate
Christian Romance
Paperback, 384 pages
February 4th 2014 by Bethany House Publishers
Allie Kirkland has never been one to take wild risks. But when she’s offered a costuming assistant’s job on a docudrama in the hills near Moses Lake, she jumps at the chance. She’s always dreamed of following in her director-father’s footsteps, and the reenactment of the legendary frontier settlement of Wildwood is a first step. The family expectations will have to wait.
But in 1861, the real Wildwood held dangerous realities. Town founder Harland Delevan held helpless residents, including young Irish schoolteacher Bonnie Rose, in an iron grip. Mysterious disappearances led to myths and legends still retold in the folk songs of Chinquapin Peaks. Eventually, the entire site was found abandoned.
When strange connections surface between Allie and the teacher who disappeared over a century ago, everyone in Wildwood, including Allie’s handsome neighbor on the film set, Blake Fulton, seems to be hiding secrets, and Allie doesn’t know who she can trust. If she can’t find the answers in time, history may repeat itself . . . with the most unthinkable results.
He
touches the pen to take it from me. “It is Bonnie Rose now.”
Lisa Wingate is a journalist, inspirational speaker, reviewer for the New York Journal of Books, and the author of over twenty novels. Her novels combine elements of history, romance, mystery, and women's fiction with nuggets of Southern culture, from the sublime to the humorous. She is a seven-time American Christian Fiction Writers Carol award nominee, a Christy Award nominee, an Oklahoma Book Award finalist, a Christianity Today Book Award nominee, an Inspy Award nominee, and a two-time Carol Award winner. Her works have been selected for Booklist’s Top Ten List in 2012 and in 2013. Recently, the group Americans for More Civility, a kindness watchdog organization, selected Lisa along with Bill Ford, Camille Cosby, and six others, as recipients of the National Civies Award, which celebrates public figures who work to promote greater kindness and civility in American life.
Prologue continued
The
man trails the steeple along his bottom lip. “Yes,” he says quite slowly,
thinking the words in the speakin’. “Yes, you will do nicely, I believe.”
Again, a sentence drifts away between us, unfinished somehow.
I’m
feeling there’s more unspoken than’s been spoken. I wish I could be asking, Nicely
. . . for what purpose? But I’ve been warned. I’ve been warned to take
care. By its nature, the position he’s offering is one of few a girl soiled as
myself might be considered for.
His
gaze lingers there on my cheek, skimming as light as grassfeathers ’cross my
ear, touching the skin at the edge of my collar. I finger the cameo locket the
good reverend’s wife has given me, then I tug the new bit of ribbon we’ve
strung it on. I wonder if the scars show, red and anger-filled.
“You
are not afraid to go into the wilderness?” he asks.
“I
see no point in it,” I say. “Fear changes nothing. A circumstance is still a
circumstance.”
“Fear
motivates. In fact, I find it to be the most certain motivator of all.” His
long, thin fingers take up the pen and into the ink he dips, then signs a paper
before pushing it my way. He turns the pen in his hand, extending it. “Sign
here. I assume that you have no problem in working with Irish. Many of my
laborers are Irish, which of course means that the whelps are Irish as well.
The remainder in the settlement are Germans, for the most part.”
“My
parents were Irish. I was born there, but I do not remember it well,” I say,
though to be sure, he’s seen it in my surname and in the look of me. It can’t
be missed.
I
take the paper, begin to pen my signature.
After
my first name and my middle adorn the paper, he stops me. I’ve lifted the pen
to dip the ink. “That will do,” he says. His lips curve again, and I feel that
we’re sharin’ a secret together, but I’ve no way of knowing what it is.
“It
is Bonnie Rose O’Brien, sir,” I tell him, reaching toward the well of
black liquid again.
His
flesh meets mine. Our eyes tangle. He is young to own so much. “It is better
this way, don’t you think?”
Suddenly,
I’ve an understandin’ of it.
I
open my hand, let the pen slide through my fingers. A drip slips ’cross my
skin, to splash on the desk. He takes a kerchief from his breast pocket. It’s
clean and white. With- out a thought, he soils it beyond repair. The blackness
seeps through and spreads as he strokes the linen over my palm. I can’t help
watching it.
He,
instead, is watching me.
My
wits gather up, and I look at him, then lose my compo- sure at the meeting of
our eyes. I’ve been offered something, but I neither know what it is, nor
understand the terms of it. Anonymity? Absolution? A future for Maggie May?
What
price does he ask to purchase it?
He
smiles then, and this time I find some warmth in it. Or am I only seeing it
because I need it to be so?
“I
will expect you to be prepared for travel by the first day of the coming
month,” he says. “Arrangements will await you at the river port. I have
ownership of a stern-wheeler that has made the run up the Trinity as far as
Porter’s luff thrice this winter,
bearing both passengers and freight. You will travel with the New Ila as
ar as Trinidad ,
then overland with the ox freighter who transports my supply shipments.” He
rises, and I bolt from my seat, afraid even of smoothing my shirtwaist as he
speaks.
“Set
your affairs in order, Bonnie Rose. Pack well. It is a long journey to
Wildwood.”
Lisa Wingate is a journalist, inspirational speaker, reviewer for the New York Journal of Books, and the author of over twenty novels. Her novels combine elements of history, romance, mystery, and women's fiction with nuggets of Southern culture, from the sublime to the humorous. She is a seven-time American Christian Fiction Writers Carol award nominee, a Christy Award nominee, an Oklahoma Book Award finalist, a Christianity Today Book Award nominee, an Inspy Award nominee, and a two-time Carol Award winner. Her works have been selected for Booklist’s Top Ten List in 2012 and in 2013. Recently, the group Americans for More Civility, a kindness watchdog organization, selected Lisa along with Bill Ford, Camille Cosby, and six others, as recipients of the National Civies Award, which celebrates public figures who work to promote greater kindness and civility in American life.
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