Read Rugged and Relentless Online
Authors: Kelly Hake
Rugged and Relentless
© 2011 by Kelly Eileen Hake
Print ISBN 978-1-60260-760-6
eBook Editions:
Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-60742-267-9
Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-60742-268-6
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.
All scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
For more information about Kelly Eileen Hake, please access the author’s Web site at the following Internet address:
www.kellyeileenhake.com
Cover design: Brand Navigation
Published by Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, OH 44683,
www.barbourbooks.com
Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses
.
Printed in the United States of America
EDICATION
Every good gift comes from the Lord—and writing this novel was a gift to me. Perhaps because there’s a lot of myself in Evie, the heroine. So, first and foremost, this work is for Him
.
But after Him come a lot of wonderful people in my life without whose support, encouragement, and reality checks things just wouldn’t come out the same. For my writing accountability partner, Steve, who put in the long hours writing with me even a country apart. For Julia, my best friend, who good-naturedly puts up with postponed girls’ nights out. For Aaron, my copy editor, who listens to my character questions and always suggests something to have me heading for the keyboard again.
…
And this one is, most of all, for Tracie, the editor who bought my first novel and came to be a cherished family friend. You’ll never know how much your mentorship and love have meant over the years—this book, and all the growth I think it represents, is thanks to you
.
Hugs and Blessings,
Kelly Eileen Hake
Mistakes, Love, and Grace!
K
EY
S
CRIPTURES:
Man looketh on the outward appearance,
but the L
ORD
looketh on the heart.
1 S
AMUEL
16: 7
There is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed;
and hid, that shall not be known
.
M
ATTHEW
10: 26
A false balance is an abomination to the L
ORD:
but a just weight is his delight.
P
ROVERBS
11: 1
PROLOGUE 
Maine, April 15, 1886Y
ou don’t have to do this, Jacob!” Mama wrung her hands from the doorway to his bedroom, where she hovered a respectful and appropriate distance. Appropriate and distant—amazing how two words could almost sum up a person’s life.
“Someone has to.” He shoved clothes into the satchel, fistfuls of hardy work material and not fancy churchgoing stuff or business wear. “Why not me?”
“You have a place here! Responsibilities! The business …” Mama ticked off answers to what he’d meant as a rhetorical question.
Women
. Jake shook his head and stuffed in a pocketknife and his shaving kit and looked around the room for other essentials. With his pistol holstered at his hip, his favorite boots on his feet, and his saddlebags bulging with enough food to see him through a few days, he didn’t need much else.
Except … He strode over to the bureau, opened his top drawer, and reached until he felt the cool piece of metal he’d thrust back there three months ago. Now he shoved it into his pocket without giving the object a glance.
“Your father needs you to help run the mill,” his mother’s
litany continued. “Now more than ever with Edward gone—”
He could tell the instant she recognized her mistake. That she stopped talking was a dead giveaway in and of itself, even if her hand didn’t flutter toward her mouth as though to capture the name and stuff it back before it could do any damage.
“Yes, Mama.” Jake paused to look her in the eye. “Edward’s gone.”
Good to hear you noticed
. He swallowed the sarcastic comment but couldn’t bury the bitterness at its root. “Four months since his death, but no one acknowledges it.”
“It doesn’t honor his memory to—”
“Remember him?” Laughter, raw with rage, scraped his throat. “But it honors him to pretend he flitted off to another state, leaving Pa in the lurch? It
honors
him to let his murderer go free to live a long life?”
“The way he died … Jake, the scandal of it would smear his memory.” She shrugged as though in supplication.
“You mean it would smear the Granger name.” He swung the satchel from his old bed and went to the door. “I have to go, Ma.” Something in him softened at the misery he saw in her face.
“But …” Tears filled her eyes and began to spill down her cheeks. It seemed as though the sudden desertion of her only remaining son allowed her to mourn both of them at once, finally crying for the firstborn who’d never come home.
Jake caught his mother in a long hug, not saying he had to go but would come back with Edward’s name clean enough to display on the family tree again.
Jake didn’t make promises he couldn’t keep. And he knew a hug didn’t promise anything, but he hoped it gave his mother some small comfort when she’d finally—
finally
—shown sorrow for the things that mattered most to her.
“But …” She sniffed, clutching his coat. “What will people
say
?”
Words. Always words, with his parents.
I should have known that’s what mattered
. He brushed her hands away. “I. Don’t. Care.”
“What about this family?” She made a final plea as he slapped
his hat on his head. “What about honoring your parents?”
“We have different definitions of honor, Mother.” With that, he headed out the door. West, to begin his hunt.
ONE Charleston, Virginia, May 5, 1886S
ell it.” Her sister’s voice cracked on the second word. “Tell Lacey to sell it all and be rid of the accursed place forever.”