Allie Pleiter - Mission of Hope

“I’ll find it. After all, I found you, didn’t I?” Quinn looked at Nora with wonder, as if the thought just struck him anew. “In all the city, after all this, I found you.”

Nora let her head fall against his strong hand. “Find us a way, Quinn.”

It was as if the topaz in his eyes ignited, as if she’d unleashed something fierce and powerful in him. Quinn took both Nora’s hands in his and kissed them gallantly. “There’s not a thing can stop me now. I reckon we have about a minute left.” He stole a look to the door behind him. “Say my name one more time.”

“You’re being…”

“Fifty seconds. Say it.”

“Quinn, be careful.”

“Not at all. I’m done being careful. Can’t you see that?”

His defiance lit fire to hers. Nora brought both his hands to her lips and kissed them tenderly. Quinn melted under her touch the way she had under his and began to pull her closer….

Enthusiastic but slightly untidy mother of two, RITA ®Award finalist Allie Pleiter writes both fiction and nonfiction. An avid knitter and unreformed chocoholic, she spends her days writing books, drinking coffee and finding new ways to avoid housework. Allie grew up in Connecticut, holds a BS in Speech from Northwestern University and spent fifteen years in the field of professional fundraising. She lives with her husband, children and a Havanese dog named Bella in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

—Philippians 1:6

For Nora

May your future always be the best of adventures

One does not tackle the great San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906 without backup. And while people look at you sideways when you get on an airplane with a dozen disaster books, I am grateful to all the fine texts out there that made my research complete. Thanks galore to historian and general good sport Eileen Keremitsis for enduring questions, finding obscure facts, and graciously unearthing errors. Any historical errors in this book can only be laid at my own stubborn and ignorant feet, certainly not at hers. Special thanks go to my local and national buddies from American Christian Fiction Writers for befriending me despite my many oddities. Krista Stroever continues to be the finest editor God ever gave me, and I could never have survived this cyclone of a publishing career without the careful guidance of my agent Karen Solem. And you, my dear readers; God bless you all.

Prologue

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

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Epilogue

Historical Note

Letter to Reader

Questions for Discussion

San Francisco, July 1906

The world rumbled and heaved. Screams and moans pierced the thundering roar, the staccato breaking and snapping, drowning out her own cries for help as the earth swallowed her up like a hungry beast. Nora Longstreet grasped for any hold she could reach, but everything dissolved at her touch so that nothing stopped her fall.

Something soft smothered her face, and she shot upright, clawing at the thing. “Annette!” she screamed for her cousin who’d been beside her just moments before. “Annette!” The monster was eating her, devouring her.

A hand clasped her shoulder. “Hush, Nora. Wake up, love, and be still.”

Nora opened her eyes to find no beast, no rumbling, no danger. “I…”

“We’re safe. We’re at Aunt Julia’s and we’re safe. Breathe now, there’s nothing to harm you.” Mama pulled a handkerchief from the sleeve of her nightshift and dabbed at Nora’s brow.

“Oh, Mama, she was there. Right beside me, asleep, I could hear her breathing. And then…”

Why must she live that horrible morning over and over when she closed her eyes? Nora moaned and leaned back against her pallet in the parlor of her aunt’s Lafayette Park home where she’d been camped since the earthquake. She was soaked with sweat, and although it was nearly dawn, she felt as if she had not slept at all. Still, she couldn’t let that stop her. Today was too important a day. Nora swung her legs over the edge of the cot and raked her fingers through her hair. “I’m going to the rally,” she said to her mother. “I think Papa needs me.”

It was her. It had to be. It was the eyes that made him certain, even from this distance.

Quinn Freeman stared harder at the young woman—not much more than twenty from the look of it—sitting uncomfortably onstage. She was trying to pay attention to the long rally speeches honoring the city’s recovery, but not quite succeeding. And the speeches were surely long. Politicians fought banks who fought insurance companies and everyone nursed a grudge over how things had been handled. The most eloquent speech on God’s green earth couldn’t explain how one man was still alive while another’s life had come to an end. The uncertainty of everything made for chaos.

Still, she was here. By some astounding act of God, she was here. And what a sight she was. Even in the gray light of this cloudy morning, she looked clean and pretty, and he hadn’t seen anything clean and pretty in days.

It was the eyes, really, that captured his attention. Round and wide, framed with golden lashes. Even in the brown tint of the charred photo he’d found, he’d somehow known they were an unusual color. Something between a blue and a violet, now that he saw them. The color of the irises Ma was fond of in one of the city gardens.

Quinn fished into his pocket for the battered locket he’d found last week as he walked home from yet another insufferably long bread line. He’d seen it glint in the corner of a rubble pile just south of Nob Hill, a tiny sparkle in a pile of black and brown timber. Usually, Quinn was looking up; he was always looking up at the buildings—or parts of buildings—still standing, admiring how they’d survived with so much rubble marking where others had fallen. It wasn’t as if bits of lives couldn’t still be found all over the city—even months out as it was, Quinn was forever picking up one shoe or a bit of a cup or a chipped doorknob.

This was different. There was something amazing about the fact that the locket was still shut, and that despite the soot and dents, there were still two tiny photographs inside. Two young women about his own age. Sisters? Cousins? He kept the charm in his pocket, making up a dozen stories as he worked or walked or waited, because everything now took hours longer than it had before. Yes, it was dirty and dented and the chain was broken, but the faces inside had survived an earthquake and a fire. And now he knew the people had, as well. Or at least one of them. Quinn just couldn’t ignore the hope in that.