Read A Promise in Defiance: Romance in the Rockies Book 3 Online
Authors: Heather Blanton
A Promise in Defiance: Romance in the Rockies Book 3
A Promise in
Defiance
By
Heather Blanton
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This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places,
incidents, and dialogues are either the product of the author’s imagination or
are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales,
organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond
the intent of the author.
Cover DESIGN by http://ravven78.deviantart.com/
Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE
KING JAMES VERSION - Public Domain
A huge
thank you
to my editors and beta readers: David Webb,
Kim Huther, Vicki Prather, Vicki Goodwin, Heather Baker,
Becky
Hrivnak, Connie White, Lisa Coffield, Linda Hames Carter, Kaye Starr Ferguson, Sandy
Chase, and Jody Zilske for formatting!
And a
huge shout-out to the awesome Diane Estrella! Your generosity and selflessness
to help a starving writer will earn you many crowns in Heaven, if no money here
on earth. Thank you!
Table of Contents
43
When
the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking
rest, and findeth none.
44
Then
he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is
come, he findeth
it
empty, swept, and garnished.
45
Then
goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself,
and they enter in and dwell there:
and the last
state
of that man is worse than the first.
Matthew 12:43-45
Dear
Reader,
Jesus was the greatest storyteller of all time. As a writer, I pray my words will
be a fraction as powerful as His. His ability to change hearts and minds with a
simple story is fascinating to me. Hence, the model for my Defiance tales.
Readers who have been with me for a while now know that the town of Defiance is
analogous to our culture. My characters, like you and I, do not live in
bubbles. They face challenges to their faith every day. Sometimes they make the
Lord proud. Sometimes they don’t. Sound familiar?
The theme of
A Promise in Defiance
is that our choices have consequences . . .
but there is always grace. We are poor, flawed vessels for delivering His truth
to a dark world. He never expected us to be diamonds. Lumps of coal are fine
with Him. Who we are doesn’t change one iota Who HE is, though. He is the very Creator
of the universe. The God Who loves us so much, He sent His Son to die for us … even
while knowing that sacrifice would not make us perfect, but would make us
something better: redeemed!
My readers know I love to research, and there is a ton of actual historical
information in my stories. My character Delilah Goodnight is based on the real Mary
Hastings, a Barbary Coast madam. Such a debauched person, I actually held back
a little in creating Delilah. In other words, she isn’t as bad as she could
have been!
A big hat-tip to the Wyoming newspaper archives (
http://newspapers.wyo.gov/
). I could have
stayed lost in all those articles covering the Indian problem, Red Light
Abatement Laws, and so much more! A real step back in time.
Finally, I would like to specifically thank Barbara Barton for her wonderful
book
Pistol Packin’ Preachers: Circuit Riders of Texas
(
http://amzn.to/1t8Bksn
)
.
These frontier
preachers faced Indians and outlaws to deliver the Gospel over hundreds of
miles of wild terrain. The insight I gleaned from them was invaluable to
developing my character of Logan Tillane.
Thank you for journeying along with me as Charles and Naomi and all the family
once more try to tame Defiance!
God bless, y’all!
Heather
“I don’t know, Matthew.”
Delilah rose from her desk and carefully swished her large, enticing bustle
over to the bar. She felt the man staring, no doubt with lust. His eyes
glittered with the hunger men never seem to conquer. “Defiance is done, I
suspect. Once Diamond Lil left and McIntyre closed the Iron Horse,” she turned
two shot glasses up and uncapped a bottle of whiskey, “that sealed it for me.”
Matthew leaned the
chair back on two legs. He was a big man, about the biggest she’d ever been
acquainted with, and the wood protested under his weight. She handed him his
drink, ignoring that handsome, square jaw and broad chest, and strolled to the
window to look out over the streets of Salt Lake City.
“You know, you are a
fine figure of a woman,” Matthew observed. “That curly auburn hair of yours
shimmers like honey. You could pass for a respectable woman—if you’d dress
right.”
Annoyed by the assumption
that she
wanted
to be respectable, she turned sideways so he could get a
better view of at least half her curves, and the low neckline on the verge of
overflowing. Slowly, she swept a sultry glance over him. Such were her weapons.
And she was well-trained in the art of war. “Save the flattery. Defiance is
dead and I’m comfortable here.”
Salt Lake City was
going to keep her well-heeled for quite some time, but she didn’t smile at the
traffic below. This town turned her stomach. She couldn’t run this brothel like
she wanted. It had to be quiet, almost respectable. No shows. Nothing raunchy,
nothing that might draw attention to the house. A bunch of pious hypocrites, these
Mormons couldn’t hand over their money fast enough, but it all had to be hush-hush.
Which proved the old adage: no matter how many wives a man had, he still wanted
a little forbidden fruit.
She did smile at that—a
dark, bitter reflection of her revulsion.
Saints, my eye
. . .
But at least a simple
brothel might not get her run out of town. Her last place had pushed the
boundaries . . . and a moral citizenry had risen up against her.
Prudes
.
Behind her, Matthew
gulped down the shot and sighed with satisfaction. “Delilah, any woman who can
run a cathouse in the middle of Salt Lake City ought to be able to restore a
two-bit mining town to its former glory.”
She snickered softly at
the joke and shook her head. “It hasn’t exactly been hard. Give a man a poke or
a bribe in this town and you can get by with a lot.”
“And that’s my point.
Nobody stops you. Once upon a time, McIntyre owned the finest brothel west of
the Mississippi. Men will talk about the Iron Horse for generations.” He raised
an eyebrow at her. “Unless you give ’em somethin’ else to talk about. Come on,
I know you want to open another Fox Den. And you can. Bigger.
More . . . entertaining.”
That brought her head
up slightly. She swallowed her own drink, tapped pretty painted nails on the
rim. “Oh no, I don’t doubt I could rival him. But fancy furniture, pretty gals,”
she looked over her shoulder at Matthew, “girls with no
boundaries
. It
all takes money.”
“You sell this place. I’ll
fund the rest.”
Delilah narrowed her
eyes at him. “That is suspiciously generous.” She wandered back to her desk, settling
in the chair, all but burying it beneath her huge bustle, and rested her elbows
on the blotter. “What do you want out of this? And don’t lie to me. Men are
worse gossips than women. I know McIntyre ran you out of Defiance.”
His face puckered up
like she’d shoved a lemon in his mouth. “True—he did. Because I wasn’t prepared
to stay.” He laced hands the size of bear paws over a flat stomach and shook
wavy blond hair off his forehead. “Now I’m ready to settle down in Defiance.”
Suddenly, he leaned forward and pressed a hand down on her desk. “And I want it
wilder and woolier than it was before. ’Cause that’s the kind of town that
suits me . . . and he’ll hate it.”
“Preacher! Preacher!
Wake up!”
The pounding passed
from Logan’s dream to the fuzzy edges of wakefulness, fading into the sound of
thunder. Rain beat on his tin roof, steady and peaceful—
“Preacher!” the voice
screamed again. “The church is burnin’!”
Logan’s eyes flew open.
The orange glow reflecting on his bedroom walls pulsed with the pounding on his
front door. He tossed back the covers, shimmied crazily into his breeches, and
raced outside, still buttoning his fly. He nearly knocked down Deacon Taylor,
the man who had been hammering on his door. Waving an apology, Logan raced past
the man toward the burning building. He skidded to a stop though, halted by the
hellish heat. Several men had formed a line leading from the water trough to
the church, but the heat held them at bay as well, their buckets still full.
“Where’s that fire
engine?” someone yelled over the roaring flames.
Logan pushed a hand
through his dark, soaking-wet blond hair.
God, no, not my church
. . .
my church.
Only then did he notice
the rain. Hard and cold, huge drops drenched the futile firefighters, ran down
his back, into his eyes. Yet his church burned at an astonishing speed, the
ravenous beast of fire gulping it down from pew to steeple.
Deacon Taylor stepped
up beside him and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Preacher. If this rain isn’t
stopping it, then we might as well be spittin’ on the flames for all the good
those buckets are gonna do. Shoot, they can’t get close enough to toss the
water anyhow.”
Logan bit down the
bitterness. If he’d only listened. And obeyed.
He’d clamped his hands
over his ears, turned away from scriptures he knew he should study, avoided
quiet time before the Lord, anything to drown out the still, small voice.
Therefore, God had taken the final step to get this new preacher’s obedience.
Content shepherding a
flock of good, God-fearing folk, Logan would not entertain the possibility the
Lord had something else,
someplace
else, in mind. He couldn’t mean to
send him
there
. Not back to real sinners.
Taylor slapped a hand
on Logan’s back. “Don’t take it so hard, Preacher. You can do services in my
barn until we get the church rebuilt.”
“I reckon you’ll be
rebuilding it without me, Deacon.”
Taylor cocked his head
as if he hadn’t heard quite right what with the flames and the rain. “What’s
that you say?”
“He’s been telling me
to move on. If I’d listened, you’d still have a church.”
Taylor’s mouth worked
futilely for a moment. Finally, he managed, “Well, where you going?”
Logan watched the
flames claw at Heaven and heard the scripture as clear as if God were standing
beside him.
Arise, go to Nineveh,
that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up
before me.
Dread pooling in his
heart, he answered Taylor with one word: “Defiance.”