A Blessing for Broken Hearts (Preview)

Prologue

Thunder shook the window panes of the little two-story farmhouse, lightning forking outside the window and illuminating the already well-lit sitting room in an eerie white-blue glow. It was quiet, even for the time of night, all the bodies long since put to bed and the nightly chores carried out, but the two women in the sitting room looked anything but ready to turn into bed themselves. 

“I can’t abide by liars in this house, Abigail,” the older woman said sternly, her ice-blue eyes sharp even across the desk between them. Her graying hair was clipped back behind her neck, her face the sort of smooth that defied putting an age to her features, but there was no mistaking the disappointment in them. 

Abby flinched at the use of her full name. She knew well enough how serious the situation was. The irritation she could have handled, she thought, maybe even the anger … it was the disappointment that twisted her stomach and made her drop her own green gaze in shame. 

“You showed up on my doorstep, looking for work, and told me your name was Abigail Hargraves, of North Carolina,” Ms. Winters continued after a short pause, her words clipped. “Now, I knew you weren’t giving me the full story then. I may not be a woman of means, but I know a North Carolina accent when I hear one, and you speak far too well to be any farmer’s daughter like you claimed. I had hoped, though, that you would be comfortable enough to have come to me with the truth by now.” 

The truth? Another bolt of lightning illuminated the windows as if emphasizing Ms. Winter’s disappointment. In the back of Abby’s head, her mother and father’s clipped words of anger rang like a stark reminder as to why she’d kept such truths so close to her chest. The truths that, at that moment, felt swollen and stuck in the very back of her throat. 

“Abigail Lane of New York,” Ms. Winters mused, shaking her head as she swept the half-moon spectacles off her face and put them down on her desktop with a sigh. “Tell me why I shouldn’t put you out of this house tonight.” 

Abby’s ears rang, the tears gathering on her lower eyelashes and spilling out and over her cheeks as she took in a scared, ragged breath. “I didn’t want to lie,” she breathed out, her knuckles blanching white from where she still held the pillowcase she had been folding when Ms. Winters had called her into the room. “I just didn’t want to use my real name; I didn’t want to be found!” 

Ms. Winters didn’t say anything, looking Abby over thoughtfully. “Why didn’t you want to be found?” she asked after a long, heavy silence. 

Six months later and her parents disowning her still felt like a hot cattle brand to her heart, even just the thought of it. 

“My family and I had a falling out,” she admitted slowly, trying to find a way to frame the words that wouldn’t sound like just an excuse. “My father … he disowned me for my choices, and I just … I wanted to start new, somewhere fresh.” 

Not that Lowville, Chicago was fresh by anyone’s standards, but it was where the money had run out and where Abby had subsequently landed. 

“What choices?” Ms. Winters asked, still unyielding. 

“I didn’t want to marry who they wanted me to,” Abby confessed with a sigh. “I love my family,” the added confession was like a barbed thorn tearing up her throat as she admitted it, the words raw and real. “I miss them, but I can’t be who they want me to be; I can’t do what they expect of me.” 

“That’s hardly a reason to come and give me a false name and place of birth, Abigail,” Ms. Winters pointed out with one raised brow. “You asked me for a place to stay and sleep that first night, do you remember? And I told you that I ran an orphanage; I didn’t run an inn. My duty is to the children that come through here; their safety is paramount.” 

Abby could remember all too easily how she’d asked for such a thing, stumbling upon the orphanage by mistake after getting turned around with the directions the dock worker had given her for the nearest inn. She’d offered to work for her room and board, and though it hadn’t been an inn, Ms. Winters had taken pity on her and agreed anyway. 

“I would never put the children in harm’s way,” Abby interrupted, her voice raised as she rushed to reassure Ms. Winters. 

“You already have,” Ms. Winters said sharply, cutting Abby off from whatever other protestations she might have. Lightning forked behind her again, and the older woman’s features softened for a moment, her cold eyes warming as she looked over at Abby huddling in the too-large armchair she sat in. “If you weren’t so good with the children, you would have already been sent away,” she said, her voice lacking the bite it had held only moments before. 

“I like this job,” Abby said, her voice breaking over the words as she sat forward in the armchair, unconsciously pleading her case. “I understand if you’re upset with me; I know I messed up. I should have told you the truth from the beginning, but in the beginning, I wasn’t planning on staying here!” It was only supposed to have been a place to stay for the night … 

“I love the children. I like helping them with their lessons and finding new ways to try foods they didn’t think they’d like. Oh, Ms. Winters, I would never in a million years have thought that I was supposed to end up in an orphanage of all places, but I know this is where God means me to be!” Abby’s hands lifted, her fingers holding to the edge of the desk nearest her as she begged Ms. Winters to believe her in both word and countenance. 

“This is where I’m supposed to be,” she continued, certainty filling her words where before she’d been so hesitant. “I may have grown up with a mama and a daddy, but I’m just as much an orphan now as they are, and I know I can help them.” 

“Help them learn to lie?” Ms. Winters asked, breaking her gaze to look out the window, her brow wrinkled with indecision as she shook her head. “I asked you earlier this evening about your life, giving you yet another chance to come forward, and you chose to lie to me again instead …” 

Abby swallowed back the painful explanation for that, too, her hands falling from the desk slowly as she watched the severity creep back into Ms. Winter’s expression. She was a kind but stern woman; Abby had watched over the last few months and come to know how seriously she viewed morality. 

She’d been so caught up in her own pain, in the struggles running from home and coping with the fall out of it that she’d never actually paused to consider how her lies could follow her here. Her own trust was frayed, left in tattered remnants from how it had been betrayed, and here she had asked Ms. Winters to so easily forgive what she had run from herself. 

“I–” Abby’s acceptance of being thrown out was interrupted by a sharp knock on the front door, carrying through the entryway and into the sitting room with an echo quickly followed by another round of ear-splitting thunder. 

Both women jumped up, their eyes cutting to the window where the storm still clearly raged outside, before rushing from the sitting room together. 

A faint cry sounded from upstairs, and Ms. Winters stopped, pausing at the stairs with her hand on the rail as she tilted her head to listen. 

Abby hurried to the front door, undoing the locks and opening it only a crack to peer out into the darkness … only to find more of it waiting on her, the rain falling in sheets from the shingles on the roof down onto the front steps with no person in sight to have caused such a ruckus. 

She opened the door a bit further, a frown between her eyebrows as she narrowed her eyes to better see into the gloom, and almost gasped at the sight she found. 

There wasn’t a body big enough to have knocked, but there was certainly a small figure huddled on those front steps, a threadbare blanket clutched around his shoulders, and tears mixing on his cheeks with the rain. 

Abby didn’t think twice before stepping out of the door, flinging it open in her haste, and rushing to the steps to pick up the bedraggled, soaked-through toddler that stood shaking there. He didn’t fight her scooping him up into her arms, nor did he fight her rushing him inside, the torrential downpour already having done its worst in soaking her through to her bones as well. 

“Abigail,” Ms. Winters started, cutting off as she saw the small boy in Abby’s arms and instead rushing to help close the door and usher them both back into the sitting room. 

“Hey there,” Abby soothed, lowering both her and the boy down in front of the fire as he stared up at her through big, dark eyes ringed with the shadow of grief and exhaustion. “What’s your name, honey?” 

The boy didn’t answer, sniffing only as he flinched away from Abby’s hands as she pushed his long, black hair back from his face. He couldn’t have been more than four at most, his olive skin and dark features making it clear that he was, at least in part, of Hispanic heritage. Abby worried for a moment that maybe he didn’t understand English. 

“Do you know where you are?” Ms. Winters asked as she returned to the room, her arms full of blankets and what looked like a fresh change of clothes. 

The little boy shook his head, seeming to sink into Abby’s embrace as a way to avoid Ms. Winters’ question. 

“Did your mommy and daddy bring you?” Abby asked softly, her heart breaking at the hollow, distrustful way that he seemed to flinch each time he was spoken to. 

Again he shook his head, but this time it was with a shrug, swallowing thickly as Abby worked to try and wrap a blanket around his small, still shivering frame. 

“That’s okay, we can figure it out,” Abby promised, her voice warm despite the conversation his arrival had interrupted. “My name is Abby; do you have a name or am I going to have to come up with one for you?” she teased, already working a small hand towel through his messy waves. 

“Blake,” the little boy whispered, his eyes flashing between her and Ms. Winters with a hard swallow following actually using his voice. 

“Blake,” Abby repeated, smiling at him as she started working the towel down the back of his neck and shoulders. “Do you know how old you are, Blake?”

When the boy nodded this time, he held up three fingers almost hesitantly, and Abby felt her heart clench even further. 

He was tall for a three-year-old, but gangly, with knobby knees and too little weight on his bones. 

“Oh, you’re so tall for a three-year-old,” Abby enthused, trying to coax a smile out of his shy, nervous expression. “I’m eighteen years old, and you’re half the length of me already! Imagine how tall you’ll be when you’re my age.” 

She was rambling, keeping his attention as she dried him off and helped him into drier clothing, overly aware of how weak he felt in her hands and how hooded his eyes were becoming the longer and longer he was in front of the warm fire. 

The storm outside the windows had ceased to matter to Abby; her focus trained solely on Blake as she wrapped him up in a dry blanket and cradled him into her chest. It was only when his blinks became long and slow that she stopped talking, her voice petering out as she stared down in wonder and pain at his face still creased even in sleep. 

When she looked up, it was to find Ms. Winters staring at her from across the room, her expression thoughtful. 

Abby almost apologized, biting back the words with a sigh as she shifted Blake in her arms and moved to stand. He needed a bed, she knew, just like she knew she needed to face the pending dismissal, even if she wanted it even less now than she had before. 

“I’ll go put him in Jeremiah’s old bed,” Abby said softly to avoid waking him as she found her footing, adjusting how she held him to keep balance. 

“You can put him in with you for now,” Ms. Winters said instead, taking Abby by surprise. “Pull one of the smaller beds in there for him. He seems to have taken a shine to you, and God knows what he’s been through before arriving here.” The older woman sighed, looking out at the storm through the windows again with a small frown. “There will be time enough for you to move him into his own room in the coming weeks,” she offered after a moment, glancing at Abby knowingly following the words. 

Abby was frozen as she felt the hope blossom anew in her chest. 

In the coming weeks. She didn’t dare argue, slipping out of the room with a prayer on her breath.

Chapter One

Dirty children made for disgruntled adults. Ms. Eleanor Winters was happy to remind workers and children alike of such any time she caught sight of one. It was a phrase repeated as loudly and often as ‘stop running’ and ‘sit down’. There were some days it was repeated even more often, especially if those days happened to be washday. 

Children scurried along the hallways of the orphanage, trying to avoid being the next one roped into the bathroom to be washed and cleaned up, Ms. Eleanor Winters walking the halls like some sort of beleaguered ghoul hollering after them. Even the walls seemed to shrink, the already tight quarters feeling smaller and dimmer on wash day. 

Only one woman among the ‘matrons’ ever seemed to be unaffected by the grim air of wash day, her curly red hair like a crown of wild glory atop her head and her soft voice always either offering words of soft encouragement or humming sweetly as she coerced children out from under beds or from behind closet doors.  

“It’s not so bad,” Abby promised while in just such a position, her belly pressed to the floor of the room that she was sequestered in and her chin resting on the backs of her hands so she could peer at the face half-hidden by darkness under one such said bed. “We don’t even have to go straight to the bath.” 

The brown eyes peering back at her were like pools of water on a harsh winter night, frozen and reflective but with very little give to their icy depths. Beth Anne was new to the orphanage, dropped off only a scant three days before, and so painfully shy that she hadn’t yet acclimated even with as little as the timeframe allowed. She didn’t know that Abby had been in this position countless times before. She didn’t have the trust in Abby that the majority of the other children did yet. 

But Abby was patient, smiling at the dirty little girl despite how little difference it seemed to make. 

“I don’t want a bath,” Beth Anne muttered finally, her discomfort with the friendly silence winning out over the stubborn silence she had been keeping. 

“Well, no, I don’t suppose you do, or you wouldn’t be under your bed,” Abby agreed genially. “We have to bathe, though! You don’t want the mommies and daddies coming here to see you all dirty and disheveled, do you?” 

“I do,” Beth Anne sniffed, her voice hard with forced anger as if being so sharp would hide the tears that she was obviously trying to pretend weren’t there. “I have a mommy, had a mommy. I don’t need ’nother.” Those little brown eyes shimmered, the cold of them cracking with grief that Abby was all too familiar with. 

“Maybe you don’t,” she agreed placidly, knowing how fruitless trying to argue with her when she was already so fraught with emotion would be. “But, you know, other little boys and girls here haven’t had a mommy or a daddy and would like to find one themselves.” 

“What’s that gotta do with me taking a bath?” Beth Anne asked tremulously, a note of reluctant curiosity staining her tone. 

“Well, you see,” Abby sighed, resting her freckled cheek against one hand as she scooted just a little bit closer to the bed and the little girl hidden under it. “The people that come to this orphanage? Not all of them find the child they’re looking for right away! They don’t want just any kid, you know. They want the child that’s meant to be in their family. Sometimes that takes a lot of trying to find. And, as silly as it is, the cleanliness of the orphanage and all of the kids in it are kind of like a testament to how well-run an orphanage we are. Sometimes the people who come aren’t even looking at adopting anyone at all! But they’re looking to invest charitably instead. No one wants to donate to a place that doesn’t care for their children now, do they?” 

Beth Anne scooted somewhat closer to the edge of the bed as well, the sunlight from the window highlighting her dirt-covered nose as she frowned at Abby. “They wouldn’t donate if I ain’t bathed?” 

“Not some of them, and we rely on donations to keep paying for all the costs of keeping this place running.” It was a frank discussion that Abby knew plenty of people would frown upon her having with the young girl. At eleven years of age, Beth Anne was past fairy tales and promises, though distrustful and scared. Any hint of sugarcoating had sent the girl running in the opposite direction for three days straight, and Abby wasn’t a fan of repeating mistakes. 

“I don’t like the cold water,” Beth Anne admitted in a small voice, that fear creeping back in again as her brown eyes shot to Abby worriedly. 

Abby’s heart constricted, her throat raw with the sudden understanding that seized her. She’d heard plenty often enough over the years about the kind of baths other facilities forced their orphans to endure. Not every orphanage was run by a Ms. Winters, and not every staff member cared about comfort regarding the extra effort involved. And Beth Anne had been in three orphanages besides in the year since her mother’s passing. 

“Well, it’s a good thing we use warm water,” Abby said brightly, biting back her own feelings to continue sounding as positive as she had this whole time. “Ms. Winters doesn’t believe in reusing old, dirty, cold water,” she teased, wrinkling her nose exaggeratedly so that Beth Anne could see. “Could you imagine her agreeing to such a thing?” she stage-whispered, smiling at the giggle she was rewarded with. 

“We all get to take our own baths?” Beth Anne asked carefully, inching out just a little bit further as she eyed Abby speculatively. 

“Oh, yes! I don’t even have to be in there to supervise,” Abby assured her, rotating her face so that her chin was back resting on her hands as she smiled. “So long as you’re certain you can get clean yourself. Although, I’d be happy to help you wash all that hair if you’d like. I know I always liked it when my little sister helped me wash my hair; my arms would get so tired.” 

She was just talking, coaxing Beth Anne out little by little more every minute, but her heart hurt for a whole different reason at the mention of her sister. 

Even four years later, she could still see Helena with tears down her face while their mother and father lectured Abby about her choices. Helena would have been around Beth Anne’s age now, only a little over a year older, though the brown of her eyes had been decidedly more amber and less obsidian. 

Beth Anne was so skinny that it only took her two pushes to come out from under the bed’s frame, her honey-blonde hair sticking up at all angles as she eyed Abby warily. “I don’t have any clean clothes,” she admitted in a small voice, glancing over to where she had been safeguarding the few belongings she had been sent with, where they still sat rumpled in the case at the end of her bed. 

“We have a few dresses that will fit you,” Abby promised, pushing herself off the floor slowly so as not to spook her and brushing several flyaway red curls back from her face as she grinned. “We can go pick out a few for you to keep, if you’d like, before your bath.” 

Beth Anne’s smile was hesitant, her eyes running around the room while she thought about it, and Abby knew that she’d won her over. 

She might be reluctant and still be careful, but she wasn’t hiding under her bed any longer, and Abby knew that she wouldn’t again. 

As Abby stood, smoothing the front of her skirts back down into some semblance of neatness, she turned, intending to offer to take Beth Anne’s few belongings with them to be added to the laundry, but whatever words she might have used to make such an offer were cut off in the back of her throat with a sudden gasp. 

Her knees buckled, her hand shooting out to the side to catch herself from falling at the sudden force of a body crashing into the back of her with all its weight, little hands pulling at her skirts as if they meant to pull them apart and climb under them. 

She didn’t even need to stop that body and pull the hands off her to know who they belonged to, the small, fearful brown eyes and shock of dark black mussed hair that met her as she turned around exactly what she had expected. 

“Blake!” she cried exasperatedly, swinging him around so he was in front of her instead of hiding behind her as he ducked down at his name as if afraid that Abby had said it too loudly. “What are you doing?!” 

Not that she waited for him to answer. She was already swinging him up and off his feet so she could hold him awkwardly on one hip while he buried his face in the crook of her neck. It was an awkward angle for a boy so lanky as him. At only seven years old, he was already near half of Abby’s height, his feet dangling below her knees as she carried him over to the dresser to better balance them both. 

It was just a hard habit to break after four years of holding him that way. It certainly wasn’t a problem, though. 

Or maybe she was just a little too prejudiced to be judging the matter. Blake had come to the orphanage around the same time as Abby, the storm that had broken out on the night he’d been left on those front porch steps soaking them both through when she’d lifted him up. While Abby had been learning the ins and outs of the orphanage, she’d also been tasked with getting little Blake to open up, a task that four years later, she was still in the midst of. 

“Don’t tell me you’re running from your bath?” Abby teased, sitting him on top of the dresser and pushing his messy black waves off his forehead fondly. “I just convinced Beth Anne here that it wasn’t anything awful.” She shot a quick glance at the girl, winking as if to draw her into the one-sided banter, but Beth Anne was just watching with wide eyes. 

“Not my bath,” Blake muttered, dragging his wrist across the lower half of his face with a sniffle. “Lucas says we’re going on a train again,” he muttered, his dark eyes lifting to Abby almost accusingly. 

Abby sighed, her heart clenching as she nodded. There was no use lying, not to Blake or Beth Anne, standing so worriedly off to the side. “Well, we have twelve new children coming in tonight, Blake,” she said with forced cheer. “Twelve kids and not nearly enough beds. Besides, you know the whole point of the train is to introduce you all to potential parents!” 

Abby had to fight the twinge of guilt that came with the words, knowing it was wrong of her to be so torn when it came to Blake specifically. Four years later, the thought that he might not be adopted again was nearly as scary as the thought that he might. 

“You said I didn’t have to get a new mommy and daddy!” Beth Anne accused, terror creeping back into her voice. 

“Well, you aren’t going on the train trip, Beth Anne,” Abby reassured her evenly, still smiling despite the chaos around her to match that tearing through her breast as well. “You’ll be settling in here! Why don’t you go ahead, grab your things, and go down the hall for your bath? I’ll help you brush your hair out after, and we can pick some of those dresses as I promised you.” Abby winked at her, cutting her eyes to Blake as if to ask for a moment to calm him down. 

For all of her skittishness, Beth Anne looked at the younger boy for only a moment before nodding. She grabbed her things more quickly than Abby had expected, bowing out of the room with a flurry of skirts to leave Abby to face Blake on her own.

Four years. 

Lord have mercy, but most days it felt only like the passing of a few months since this gangly little seven-year-old had been that quiet, frightened three-year-old she’d brought in out of the rain. 

Abby loved all the children; it was just … Blake had a special part of her heart, her hands more motherly as they straightened his hair and brushed down either cheek as if to recenter him. “I thought you’d be excited to go on another trip to meet new people?” she asked softly, allowing her focus to center on him as he breathed out a ragged sigh. 

“No one ever wants to adopt me,” he muttered, looking away from her and off towards the windows with a small frown. 

Abby wanted to argue with him, but she knew there was truth to his words. Over all the years, through all the meet and greets, there was always some reason or another that Blake was passed over. Every time it was as cutting as the first, every time it made less and less sense to Abby. 

“You come help me get the table set for dinner,” Abby said, false cheer in her voice again. “You can help me get everything ready, and you can tell me what’s got you so turned about this time, yeah?” She leaned forward, nudging Blake’s shoulder with her own. “We’ll quiet that worry all in your head, I promise.” 

It was a familiar promise, just like the small smile he gave her as she made it. 

Even as she helped him down off the dresser, though, his little hand in hers, she wondered if maybe she wasn’t setting him up for failure all over again. 

Abby didn’t want to see Blake get passed over again. 

Maybe it was time for her to consider the other options the two had.

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“A Blessing for Broken Hearts” is an Amazon Best-Selling novel, check it out here!

Abby Lane always does what is expected of her, doing her duty by her family, at least until her parents try to force her into a loveless marriage. In a desperate attempt to save herself, she runs away by getting the first train ticket to nowhere. Fate leads her to an orphanage that gives her a job and to a little boy who brings hope into her life. Along with the fresh air of joy she finds, comes a strange but intriguing man who seems to care for her and her little companion…

Will she be able to take care of this innocent soul while this man keeps her distracted from her past life?

Galvan Wetherbee knows how life can chew and spit a person out, but he’s worked hard for his security and reputation as a private detective in New York. While he’s trying to help his father with his debt, an opportunity comes along that he just cannot miss. When a wealthy family approaches him about finding their wayward daughter and bringing her back home for her impending engagement, he’s sure the payout will do justice to his choice. Abby is nothing like the picture her father painted of her though, and the little boy makes it even harder for Galvan to remain as objective as he needs to be.

Can he ignore the stirrings of his heart and complete the job like he’s supposed to, or will Abby’s struggle and kind heart break him?

Despite how destined their pairing seems, there are forces set on seeing them down a different path. How can Galvan ever choose between his own father and the new family he has come to love? When the truth comes out, will their new love be enough to weather the storm, or will they be torn apart by it all?

“A Blessing for Broken Hearts” is a historical western romance novel of approximately 80,000 words. No cheating, no cliffhangers, and a guaranteed happily ever after.

Get your copy from Amazon!