Carolyn Davidson - Eden

“Carolyn Davidson creates such vivid images, you’d think she was using paints instead of words.”

—Bestselling author Pamela Morsi

“Davidson wonderfully captures gentleness in the midst of heart-wrenching challenges.”

—Publishers Weekly on Haven

“Readers are in for a treat.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on The Bride

“For romance centering on the joys and sorrows of married life, readers can’t do much better than Davidson…. This is a sweet and sensitive novel that fulfills an evening’s dreams.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Nightsong

“[An] unflinching inquiry into the serious issues of the day.”

—Booklist on Redemption

“Davidson’s touching western romance delivers what readers expect from a writer who strives to understand the deepest feeling and dreams of our hearts.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Haven

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Dear Reader,

I love to write of days long ago when the world as we know it was a perfect place to live, filled with men and women of good character, children who thrived and flourished within the arms of family and friends, and homes where love and affection was widely disbursed among those who were fortunate enough to live there. Alas, there were also places, perhaps not too far from those happy families, where children were abused and sometimes brutalized, not given the opportunities to thrive as was their right.

Katie was such a child, and her story lived in my mind and heart for months before I sat down to write it. It made me look around me, perhaps seeking out children in my vicinity who face similar problems. For they are out there, and they are victims, as was Katie. My heroine was fortunate to find a man who would understand her and love her enough to face her fears with her. And so I offer you Eden, a place designated for love and happiness, with two lovers who deserve only the best that love can offer.

This story is dedicated to those victims of abuse by an adult in their lives. Such actions still remain as a painful memory in these men and women. Child abuse is not a thing of modern times, but has existed for centuries in our world. Today it is still an issue that must be faced and obliterated. May each of you find joy, as did Katie in my story.

And most of all, this book is dedicated, as is everything I accomplish, to the man in my life, Mr. Ed, who loves me.

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

EPILOGUE

Eden, The Dakota Territory

February, 1890

SURELY HER OWN MOTHER had not lived such a life. Through the window of the Dogleg Saloon, Katie watched the women who roamed the smoke-filled area, seeking out men upon which to try their skills. Hair upswept, makeup all too obvious and dresses too gaudy to be believed all added to their allure.

Or so they apparently believed. “How sad.” The words were but a whisper as the young woman watched the parade of females conduct their pursuit of the cowhands who worked on outlying ranches and farms and assorted married men from the town of Eden, in the Dakota Territory. That she could ever live in such a manner was something she would never have considered during the days of summer, when the warm weather protected her slender body from the cold winds. When she did not bear the shame of a mother who had once worked in this place. Or so she’d been told by the couple who’d raised her, reviling her with a tale of a woman gone bad, bearing an illegitimate child.

She’d found that the parents she’d thought were her own, were but unkind strangers who had taken her into their home as an act of charity. And if what they had done in the name of charity were known among the townspeople, they might not be able to hold up their heads in Eden.

But a young girl would not be believed when her word was placed next to an upstanding pair who posed as ideal parents of a girl who had turned out badly. And Katie was that girl, if her foster parents were to be believed.

In that same home dwelt a second child, a younger female, the abandoned daughter of a relative of Agnes Schrader, who had been given the privilege of schooling at the town’s one-room schoolhouse. But Katie was not so fortunate, for with a background so filled with disgrace and shame, she wasn’t considered worth the trouble to educate.

She had been whipped and treated as a slave for twelve years, was now approaching her eighteenth birthday, yet had done the work of a woman while still a child. Taking her courage in both hands, she’d left the farm where she’d lived in servitude and set out to find shelter. Shelter for a weary body and sanctuary for a mind confused by the perils life had dealt her. Most of them derived from the man who had become a threat to her on another level over the past weeks, for Jacob Schrader had attempted to crawl beneath her quilt on three occasions. She feared him more than she had thought possible.

Tonight, his words of sly entreaty had brought chills to her flesh, his looks of dark anger and the flashes of masculine power he’d brought to bear upon her were enough to find her running for her very life. The thought of his hands on her body was enough to force her to flee.

She’d walked for three miles, shivering in the ragged clothing she wore, wrapped in a shawl she’d taken without permission from a hook by the back door of the farmhouse, desperate for a safe place in which to hide. Any rude shelter would do, so long as it provided surcease from the north winds that promised snow, sweeping across the plains of Canada down to the fields of the Dakota Territory.

Summer had been bad enough, with long days spent in the fields, evenings in the farmhouse, where her work was never done. Now, in February, things were changed, the sun an infrequent visitor to the sky, replaced by snow clouds that threatened to spill their weight upon the surrounding countryside. The oncoming weather would be her worst enemy, unless she included that house she had just left.

She peered again into the saloon, its smoke-filled interior teeming with men seeking enjoyment, many of them half-drunk, the other half well on their way to that state. The smoke from their cigars and hand-rolled cigarettes rose to the ceiling and formed a haze guaranteed to make her cough and choke, should she linger long in its presence.

But, it seemed she might have no choice, for the saloon might indeed be the only haven available to a young woman without a job, or a place to live. Surely she could bring herself to serve drinks to men, smile at them and return their remarks. Even dance with one or two if the necessity arose, if she could but learn to sway to the music as did the other females in this place, curving their bodies closely to the men who held them.