Leona Karr - Hidden Blessing

The mare rose to her feet, and in a few minutes, Princess tried her long wobbly legs without success.

“Why don’t you get up and help her?” Shannon asked.

He shook his head. “She’ll do it herself when she’s ready. That’s the wonderful thing about letting nature have its way. Everything has perfect timing if we will just keep the faith. If we try to force things, we end up in trouble.”

A few minutes later, Princess stood on her wobbly legs. Calico moved close to her, allowing her baby to nurse.

The moving scene brought tears to Shannon’s eyes.

“I know it’s beautiful,” Ward said, his own voice husky. The moment was a precious one, and as he looked at Shannon’s rapturous expression, he knew with a strange sense of certainty there was no woman in the world with whom he’d rather share it.

A native of Colorado, Leona (Lee) Karr is the author of nearly forty books. Her favorite genres are inspirational romance and romantic suspense. Graduating from the University of Colorado with a B.A. and the University of Northern Colorado with an M.A. degree, she taught as a reading specialist until her first book was published in 1980. She has been on the Waldenbooks bestseller list and nominated by Romantic Times for Best Romantic Saga and Best Gothic Author. She has been honored as the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writer of the Year and received Colorado’s Romance Writer of the Year Award. Her books have been reprinted in more than a dozen foreign countries. She is a presenter at numerous writing conferences and has taught college courses in creative writing.

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I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.

—Ezekiel 36:26

With love to Debbie, Charlotte, Kay and Vivian.

My special family, and loyal fans.

Dear Reader,

I chose to set Hidden Blessing against the backdrop of a Colorado forest fire, because it is in times of crisis that we examine our spiritual beliefs and are open to change.

The hard shell of ambition and pride that my heroine, Shannon, has placed around herself begins to crack when she finds herself a refuge in an evacuation center without any worldly possessions. The hero, Ward Dawson, is challenged to bring Shannon into a relationship with God, but like so many of us, he has come to his faith the hard way, and he suspects that Shannon is on the same path. When he tells her that growing in spiritual faith is not a sprint but a marathon, I believe that he speaks a truth for all of us.

Please enjoy the excitement, drama and tenderness in this love story. Letters of sharing are truly welcome.

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

Epilogue

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.”

Ezekiel 36:26

The last thing that Shannon Hensley expected when she rented a summer cottage near Beaver Junction, Colorado, was to be confronted with a life-threatening forest fire.

“They’re bringing in firefighters from all over,” Isabel Watkins, the owner of the town’s one grocery store, told Shannon as she quickly sacked her purchases. “This place is going to be worse than a beehive turned upside down.”

Shannon’s gray-blue eyes widened. “The report I heard said the fire was somewhere in the high country.”

“That’s us,” Isabel replied with a nod. “The fire started up on the north ridge. They don’t know if it was started by careless campers or lightning. Everyone was hoping that it would burn itself out, but the winds have spread the blaze downward.”

“But it’s still miles away, isn’t it?” Shannon asked, feeling an unbidden quiver of nervousness. She’d rented a summer cottage in a deeply wooded area about fifteen miles from this small settlement and had only been settled a short time.

“Not many miles as the crow flies. It’s unbelievable how fast a wildfire can spread,” Isabel answered, shaking her head. “They’re hoping to get a fire line set up before the flames crest Prospect Ridge. Once it jumps into those thick drifts on the downhill slopes, it could make its way into this valley.”

Great, just great! Shannon thought, and filled with all kinds of misgivings, she left the store and started driving down the two-block Main Street. She’d driven to Colorado, looking for a quiet retreat where she could try to make some sense out of the shambles of her life. She had wanted to leave all the drama and trauma behind in Los Angeles. Even now she couldn’t believe that she was jobless, friendless and facing another uphill battle to secure a prosperous future for herself.

It wasn’t fair, but then she reminded herself that she’d never expected life to be fair. She’d fought tooth and nail for everything she’d ever gotten. Her parents had believed that looking out for number one was what life was all about and had taught their daughter well. Shannon’s focus had been on climbing the corporate ladder since college, and there had been little time in her life for anything or anyone else. She was well on her way to achieving her high goals when, almost overnight, her high-paying position was eliminated because of a corporate takeover, and she was tossed out by new management as easily as they were replacing old office furnishings with new.

Now it seemed that her hopes of spending some relaxing downtime in Colorado were threatening to go up in smoke. Maybe she should pack up her things and get out of the area. Better to forgo a month’s rent than put herself under more tension worrying about a forest fire driving her out. But where would she go? Her finances were tight at the moment, and the added expense of seeking out another retreat wasn’t something she had planned on. Besides, she told herself firmly, the fire might never get within miles of her rented place. She decided that it wouldn’t hurt to hang around for a couple of days even though this mountain valley was isolated with only one two-lane road leading from the Junction to a major highway in Elkhorn, a town about fifty miles away.

As Shannon turned onto the narrow road snaking up to her mountain cottage and other dwellings built on the slopes of Rampart Mountain, she braked to a sudden stop.

“What in the world?” She couldn’t believe it. A wooden barricade was stretched across the road, and a man wearing a cowboy hat and Western clothes moved quickly to her car window. Under different circumstances she might have appreciated his strong masculine features and the way his brown eyes reflected a smile as he waited for her to lower the window on the driver’s side. She guessed him to be somewhere in his early thirties as he gave a polite tip to his broadbrimmed Stetson and acknowledged her with a polite hello.