Jill Marie Landis - Homecoming

“Jill Marie Landis’s emotional stories will stay with you long after you’ve finished reading.”

— New York Times bestselling author Kristin Hannah

“Jill Marie Landis creates characters you want to spend time with and a story that will keep you turning the pages.”

— New York Times bestselling author Susan Elizabeth Phillips

“Jill Marie Landis can really touch the heart.”

— New York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz

“Ms. Landis gifts readers with a remarkable multi-layered love story that touches the heart.”

— Romantic Times BOOKreviews on The Orchid Hunter

“Readers will weep with sorrow and joy over Landis’s smart and romantic tale.”

— Booklist on Magnolia Creek

“In this gripping and emotionally charged tale, Landis delivers another unusual, beautifully crafted romance.”

— Booklist on Blue Moon

Homecoming

Jill Marie Landis

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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For my grandmothers, Maria and Ruby.

For Margaret, my mother.

And for Joan and Melissa.

Thank you for helping me find

the joy in writing again.

I have been a stranger in a strange land.

— Exodus 2:22

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

Texas, 1873

G unshots echoed in the distance. The acrid smell of smoke and blood and burning flesh poisoned the evening air. In the sparse, brittle grass growing on the bank of a dry creek bed, a young woman lay facedown, clinging to handfuls of dirt, anhoring herself to the land.

Pebbles cut into her cheek as she pressed closer to the earth. Barely breathing, she feared the attackers would find and kill her, just as they’d killed the others—her mother and father, the old ones. White Painted Shield had just brought her father fifty fine horses as a bride price. Tonight he would have become her husband—and now he was dead.

Moments ago, when the first shots rang out, confusion and panic sent everyone grabbing weapons and children, scattering for cover. Her husband-to-be was one of the first to realize what was happening. He’d grabbed her little brother, Strong Teeth, and shoved the boy into her arms. Then he pressed the hilt of his own knife into her hand and commanded her to run.

She hesitated, confused and reluctant to leave. It was the way of the women to fight. They had been trained to battle as ferociously as the men. Then the Blue Coats were bearing down on them all and suddenly her instinct to save the child sent her running for cover. White Painted Shield lifted his carbine and fired.

He was cut down before her eyes.

Heart pounding, her head filled with the cries of the dead and dying, she clung to her little brother’s hand and sprinted away from the echo of gunshots, the thunder of hooves, the destruction.

She thought her heart would burst before she reached the open plain. Gasping for every breath, she expected the white-hot pain of a bullet to rip through her flesh.

As they ran toward the creek bed funneling through a shallow ravine, Strong Teeth suddenly crumpled, his little legs bending like broken twigs as they folded beneath him. She pulled his lifeless body into her arms.

His blood smeared the front of her beaded clothing, ruined the garment it had taken her mother, Gentle Rain, weeks to bead. She stared down into the six-year-old’s unseeing eyes, knew there was no hope yet clung to him a moment longer.

Chaos erupted around her, but she took precious time to gently lower him to the ground before she ran on. She gathered speed, fueled by fear so intense it became all consuming. As she ran, she found herself thinking not again and was haunted by the notion that she’d somehow lived through this all before.

With each footstep she heard Gentle Rain’s voice in her mind.

Keep your head down. Never let them see your eyes.

So the young woman kept her head lowered when she slid down the dry, sandy bank. She hit the ground hard, bumped her cheek against the dirt with such force that her lip split. She tasted blood. Flinging her left arm up, she covered the back of her head with the crook of her elbow and tucked her right arm beneath her, hiding the knife she still clutched in her hand.

Tonight I was to become White Painted Shield’s wife.

The dream she’d cherished for so long had become a nightmare.

As the onslaught wound down, single gunshots rang out here and there in the distance. Except for fires crackling as dwellings burned, the world became deathly silent. The sky was filled with billowing spirals of smoke drifting like flocks of black vultures, obscuring the late-afternoon sun.

She thought she was safe until the ground began to shake as mounted riders thundered near. Their shouts drifted to her, strange words in a language rough and foreign and yet the words haunted her, conjuring flashes of nightmarish memories. Images that confused and frightened—flames and smoke and blood—much like everything she’d seen today, but different somehow.

Hide your eyes.

A few of the riders passed by, but then there came a shout. Nearby, a horse whinnied. She recognized the creak of a leather saddle before she heard heavy footfalls above her. When the sandy soil gave way beneath a man’s tread and a rain of pebbles and dirt sifted down on her, she didn’t dare look up.

More shouts as the man called out to the others. Though she couldn’t understand him, he sounded excited. She bit her swollen lip, swallowed a scream when he roughly jerked her to her feet.

Refusing to look up, she trembled as she stared at the bloodstains on her beaded moccasins and was ashamed of her cowardice. The front of her long doeskin shirt was stained with blood, the blood of her little brother.

He died bravely today.

So would she.

My marriage day.

A good day to die.

The man in front of her stank of sweat and fear and hatred. He grabbed her chin. Forced her to raise her head.

Never let them see your eyes.

She tried to keep her eyes closed, but what did it matter now? What did anything matter? Her family, her betrothed, were dead. Everyone she loved was gone.

Filled with anger and defiance, she raised the hidden knife, intent on plunging it into his heart. But he was bigger, stronger. He grabbed her wrist and twisted. She cried out at the shock of pain. Her fingers uncurled and the hunting knife fell to the ground at her feet.

She raised her head at last and stared into his cold, hate-filled eyes and willed the bearded white man to take her life. There was fury in his gaze, along with an anger that left no doubt that he wanted to kill her.

Do it now, she thought. Kill me, Blue Coat, so that I can join the others.