Hidden Spring: A Novella

By Liz Adair

Susannah Brown, a beautiful young widow, lives out the tragedy of having the love of her life die after only six months as his bride. Not only must she deal with the heartbreak of loneliness, she must try to support herself as a dairymaid in 1890’s Arizona Territory after having been raised a lady in Boston.
The house on the property she inherited is a tumbledown shack, and she despairs about her whole situation until the homecoming of her dead husband’s half-brother, Douglas.
Susannah has heard what townspeople whisper about him, and when she finds him on her doorstep, his visit is unwanted and unwelcome. But he helps out around her place and soon becomes a friend of sorts, confiding to her a secret that few people know.
It is only after Susannah’s obsession with her husband’s memory drives Douglas away that she realizes she loves him. What will it take for her to win him back?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Liz Adair
• Release date: Mar 25, 2017
• ISBN: 9780997103472

Book preview

This novella is dedicated to my mother-in-law, Ruth Lavene Larson Adair. A child of the depression, she lived close to the earth all her life. Among other life lessons, she taught me to make butter and cottage cheese.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Heather Moore of Mirror Press for inviting me to write a novella for her Timeless Romance Series, Western Collection and for pressing me when I demurred. Writing Hidden Spring was a fun project, and I was in great anthology company with Heather Moore, Annette Lyon, Marsha Ward, Sarah Eden, and Carla Kelly.

My critique group supported me a chapter at a time with their tough love. I am indebted to Terry Deighton, Ann Acton, Bonnie Harris, Tanya Mills and Christine Thackeray.

Thanks to Joshua Baird for his evocative cover.

And thanks to Annette Lyon for her terrific editing.

SUSANNAH STEPPED OUT of the cottage where she lived alone, blinking at the bright morning sunshine. She pulled a pair of gloves out of her apron pocket and gritted her teeth as she put them on, steeling herself for the long and painful walk ahead. She wrapped two of Wesley’s bandana handkerchiefs around the gloves for extra padding then picked up the bail of an enamelware milk jug in each hand and set off down the lane.

By the time she got to the fence that divided the upper and middle pastures, she had to stop and set her burdens down. As she flexed her hands, Sweetie, a fawn-like calf and the solo resident of the middle pasture, came over to see her.

Don’t you stare at me with those big, sad eyes, Susannah said. This milk isn’t for you. You can thank Mama Brown for that. She’s lined up customers for every day of the week.

As she picked up the jugs and continued, Sweetie followed on the other side of the fence. That’s a hard-hearted woman, Susannah told the calf. She said to me, ‘You’ve got to go back to your own place and get on with your life.’ So I told her, ‘I don’t have a life anymore.’ And I don’t.

She set the jugs down and used one of the bandanas to wipe away the tears that had sprung to her eyes. I don’t have a husband, she said to Sweetie. I don’t have any money, and I’m stuck here in Arizona Territory, a place thirty years behind times. It’s 1890, for heaven’s sake, and here I am, walking a mile to town every day carrying these stupid—

Susannah stopped midsentence and stared at Sweetie as an idea formed in her mind. The heifer was four months old. Two gallons of milk wouldn’t be too much of a burden for her to carry. Susannah just needed something to make a set of saddlebags.

She picked up her skirts and ran back toward the house. Don’t go away, she called over her shoulder. I’ll be back.

Slamming through the front door, she ran through the kitchen-parlor-dining room, into the bedroom, and pulled down the ladder that went to the loft. After scrambling up, she hefted the cases of Wesley’s books out of the way. Behind them sat the battered trunk that had served as her hope chest when she’d married a little over a year ago.

Susannah opened the trunk. She didn’t pause to touch the rosebuds she’d embroidered on the chambray nightgown for her wedding night. Nor did her gaze linger on the wedding picture stashed between dishtowels and bed linens. She dug to the bottom, unearthing the quilt Ivy Patterson had given her.

Though Susannah liked the bright reds, blues and pinks in the nine-patch quilt, she had never liked Ivy Patterson. She smiled wickedly as she pulled it out and tossed it over the loft railing. Then she slammed the lid shut, moved the boxes of books back in front of the trunk, and headed to the ladder to climb down.

She paused with her foot on the top rung. Reaching over, she opened one of the boxes and took out a slim volume, all she had left of her dead husband. She traced the embossed letters as her lips formed the words of the title: Hidden Spring, Poems by Wesley R. Brown. On impulse, she slipped the book into the pocket of her apron then finished her descent.

She picked up the quilt, grabbed her sewing box, and went to work at the kitchen table. With the aid of a spool of carpet thread, a stout needle, and a pair of scissors, she folded and stitched the quilt into a crude and colorful set of panniers. When it hung over Sweetie’s back, each side would have separate pockets for two one-gallon milk cans.

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