Love Comes Home

  © 2014 by Ann H. Gabhart

  Published by Revell

  a division of Baker Publishing Group

  P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

  www.revellbooks.com

  Ebook edition created 2014

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  ISBN 978-1-4412-4519-9

  Scripture used in this book, whether quoted or paraphrased by the characters, is taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Published in association with the Books & Such Literary Agency.

  Praise for Angel Sister

  “This book will leave you changed as it uncovers family secrets and draws you into the days following the First World War and the Great Depression. It will astound you how the characters persevere while making difficult decisions amidst heartache and their determination to make it through the toughest of hard times.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “Angel Sister paints an inspirational portrait of forgiveness and grace in the midst of trial and hardship. . . . It reveals how forgiveness brings freedom, not so much for the one forgiven as for the one doing the forgiving. Two major strengths to Ann Gabhart’s writing include her deeply textured characters and rich atmosphere. She moves the plot forward by weaving the past with the present. . . . There are many levels to this deftly written novel.”

  —Crosswalk.com

  Praise for Small Town Girl

  “The characters of Ann Gabhart’s Small Town Girl pulled me into their lives and did not let me go. This love story, painted upon the canvas of a small Kentucky town struggling with WWII, is one of the most riveting historical romances I’ve ever read.”

  —Serena B. Miller, winner of the 2012 RITA award for Inspirational Romance

  “Gabhart writes wonderful, fast-paced stories with faith-driven, hardworking protagonists who find time for love amidst mistakes, misunderstandings, and miscommunications.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “A classic. Ann Gabhart pens an enduring tale from the very first line of Small Town Girl. Rosey Corner is a world you won’t want to leave, rife with spiritual truths, rich romance, and memorable characters that linger long after!”

  —Laura Frantz, author of The Colonel’s Lady and Love’s Reckoning

  To the Hawkins sisters whose wonderful stories and laughter made my Rosey Corner stories come to life

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Endorsements

  Dedication

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  A Parting Note from Ann

  About the Author

  Books by Ann Gabhart

  Back Ads

  Back Cover

  1

  The news was good. The news was wonderful. Kate Tanner grabbed her notebook and headed out of the newspaper building to join the people spilling out onto the Lexington, Kentucky, streets. Tommy yelled that she could get a better view from the upstairs window, but she wasn’t worried about the best view. This wasn’t just the chance for another story. Her feet wanted to dance in the streets too.

  The boys were coming home! Japan had surrendered. The bombs, the terrible bombs, had finished the fighting. The war was over.

  The instant she stepped out on the sidewalk, a stranger grabbed her, lifted her off her feet, and spun her around. He was smiling. She was smiling. He said something when he turned her loose, but she had no idea what as church bells and horns drowned out his words. He laughed and slung his hat up in the air with no thought of retrieving it before he ran on up the street.

  Everywhere people waved handkerchiefs and papers in the air. Kate joined in with her notebook. Sal from the restaurant across the street grabbed her in a bear hug and knocked her notebook out of her hand. It didn’t matter. She didn’t need to take notes. Every second of this scene would be burned in her memory forever. The shouts and laughter. The boys shimmying up the lampposts who wouldn’t have to go to war now. The girls sparkling at the thought of their sweethearts coming home. Sparkling like Kate.

  She felt the crackle of Jay’s last letter in her pocket. His words played through her mind. I love you. I’ll be coming home to Rosey Corner soon unless I have to ship out to the Pacific. Nobody’s sure what’s going to happen there.

  But now he could be sure. They could all be sure.

  He was in Germany. Not fighting anymore. Blessedly not fighting since the Allied forces rolled through Berlin in May. Hitler was dead and the Germans defeated. The prison camps had been liberated. Mike, her sister’s husband, was free after two years in a German stalag. Praise the Lord neither he nor Jay would have to go to the Pacific. The only place they had to come now was home. Home to Rosey Corner, Kentucky.

  Kate wished one of the happy people pushing past her was Evie. Her sister would surely be dancing in the streets in Louisville where she worked. It would be even better if they were both in Rosey Corner with their other sisters. Lorena would be singing, her beautiful voice calling Jay and Mike home. Tori would be celebrating too, or trying to. She’d be happy for Evie and Kate. She would. Sincerely happy, but tears would be under her smile. Not all the boys would be coming home. Tori’s Sammy would not.

  Sadness stabbed through Kate. How many other wives and mothers watched the celebration with sorrow in their hearts? Those like Tori who had taken down their Service flag to cover the blue star with a gold one, showing the terrible price of the war? She shook away the thought. This wasn’t the time to weep for the dead. It was time to rejoice that the dying was over.

  Two girls she knew from the dime store grabbed Kate’s hands to pull her on up the street. Not to get anywhere, but just because if they didn’t move, they might explode from the joy. The boys were coming home!

  2

  When Graham Lindell burst through the door of Merritt’s Store in Rosey Corner, Victoria Harper whirled around from stocking the shelves to see what was wrong. He’d lost his hat and his gray hair was poking out in every direction. Chaucer, his mottled tan and gray shepherd, was right on his heels, barking like he was chasing a bear. Out front, Mr. Henderson blasted his horn even though Tori’s mother was right beside his car, ready to pump his gas.

  Tori’s little girl, Samantha, let out a wail when Graham rushed past her without so much as a glance.

  “What in the world, Graham? Did one of the Redlegs hit a grand slam?” Tori stepped out from behind the counter to pick up Samantha, but she
wouldn’t be placated. In all her two years, she’d never had Graham completely ignore her. He was her best buddy.

  “Way better than that, Victoria.” He grabbed Samantha out of Tori’s arms and swung her around, changing her tears to giggles in an instant. “It just came over the radio. The Japanese surrendered. The war’s over.”

  Tori stared at him while the words sank in. The war was over. Good news for sure, but not soon enough for her and Samantha. For her husband, Sammy. She leaned back against the counter and burst into tears.

  Graham stopped in mid-spin, and Samantha stared at her mother and stuck her fingers in her mouth. “Aww, Victoria, I reckon it’s hard for you to feel happy, what with Sammy dying over there in Japan.” He patted her shoulder, awkward in the face of her tears. Chaucer stopped barking and pushed his nose up against her leg.

  “I’m happy.” Tori swallowed hard and wiped her face with her apron, but the tears wouldn’t stop. “Happy tears.” She managed a smile, glad nobody else was in the store to see her falling apart. She’d gotten better. She really had. She hadn’t shed tears in front of anybody for months now.

  “Of course they are.” Graham gave her shoulder another clumsy pat.

  “They are.” Tori took Samantha back from Graham and gave him a little shove toward the door. “Go on with you. I know you’re dying to tell the rest of Rosey Corner.”

  Graham’s smile came back. “I done told your daddy. He’s headed down to the church to ring the bell.”

  “Everybody will think there’s a fire.”

  “Maybe so, but then we’ll tell them the good news.” Graham threw his hands up in the air and Chaucer let out another volley of barks. “Don’t you know your sisters are happy up in their big towns? And where’s that Lorena? We need to tell her.”

  Another horn began honking out on the road and then the church bell was tolling. Lorena raced through the door, a smile all the way across her face. She was as tall as Tori now but beanpole skinny. People who didn’t know Lorena had been adopted into the family were always saying how much she looked like Tori. It was their black hair, although Tori’s was straight and Lorena’s exploded in curls. Other than that, they didn’t look much alike. Tori’s eyes were green and Lorena’s brown as buckeyes. Tori knew she wasn’t hard to look at, but even in the midst of the awkwardness of being fourteen, Lorena could make people stop for a second look. She was that striking, especially when she was as happy as she was this moment.

  She threw her arms around Tori and Samantha in a hug that had Samantha smiling again. Then Lorena grabbed both of Graham’s hands and pulled him in a circle like a kid playing ring around the rosie. Chaucer danced around them, his tongue spilling out the side of his mouth in a goofy dog grin. Scout, Lorena’s dog, jumped up on the screen door and whined in protest at being left outside with that other dog inside.

  More horns started blowing and the church bell kept ringing. Tori could imagine her father’s smile as he pulled the bell rope. He hated the war. Every bit of bad news from the battlefronts had weighed him down. In the spring, he’d caught a cold that lingered, and now here in August he still had a wheezy cough. Aunt Hattie blamed it on the mustard gas in the Great War, the one Daddy fought in before Tori was born and that people claimed would end all wars. They had been wrong about that. Very wrong.

  “I wish Kate was here. And Evie. Don’t you, Tori?” Lorena reached back to grab Tori’s hand. “Come on. You have to dance with us. You have to be happy for them.” Her smile lit up the store. “For me. For all of us.”

  Tori was glad she’d swallowed down her tears. Their traces might still be on her cheeks and show in her red-rimmed eyes, but she wasn’t weeping now. She was happy for Kate and Evie. Their husbands would come home to them. Maybe Kate would quit her job at the newspaper and come back to work here at the store.

  That would suit Tori. She’d rather wave away sweat bees out in the garden picking beans than work at the store. But when Kate moved to Lexington, their mother needed help and Tori needed a job. Some days, though, Tori wanted to be sitting alone on the bank of Graham’s pond watching her cork bob in the water. That wasn’t exactly true. She didn’t want to be alone. She wanted Sammy there beside her.

  She pushed away the thought to keep the tears from leaking out again. She could keep smiling, especially with Samantha laughing out loud when Graham bumped against one of the loafer’s chairs against the wall. Making a silly face at the little girl, he plopped down in the chair. Chaucer jumped up to lick him.

  “He’s no Poe,” Graham groused, but he didn’t push the dog away. Since Poe, his old hound, had died and he’d taken in the stray shepherd, he said that a lot. So much that they’d all started saying it when something didn’t quite measure up to what they wanted. It’s no Poe.

  But this news did measure up. Definitely wonderful. Now Kate and Evie would have the chance to be mothers like her. Tori pulled loose from Lorena to hug Samantha closer.

  She might be a widow at nineteen, but she had Samantha. She had her mother and father. She had her sisters. And her brothers-in-law were coming home. For that she could keep her smile bright and not let tears pop out again. At least not until tonight when she was alone in her bed.

  When Mama opened the door, Scout slipped past her to add to the craziness. But Mama just laughed and kept laughing even when his long tail knocked some cracker boxes off the shelf. Tori set Samantha down beside Graham to grab the crackers before Scout got them. Scout would eat anything, wrapped or unwrapped.

  “It’ll be good to have the store stocked again.” Tori’s mother looked around at the scarcity of cans on the shelves. “Mr. Henderson out there thinks they’ll lift the gasoline rationing right away.”

  “It wasn’t gasoline in short supply anyway.” Graham pushed Chaucer out of his lap but didn’t stand up. “The government didn’t want folks wearing out their tires. Not a bother for me. Never had no use for a car. Shoe leather works fine, and if your shoes wear out, you just figure a way to keep on wearing them.” He held his foot up to show the hog rings holding the upper part of his shoe to the soles.

  “You should have let Victor resole those for you.” Victoria’s mother shook her head at Graham, but she was smiling. “That’s one reason he started working on shoes. So people wouldn’t have to buy new ones and maybe rob a soldier of boots he needed.”

  “He remembered the foot rot in the Great War.”

  “Yes, yes he did.” A frown flickered across Mama’s face, but then her smile came back. “Just listen to him ring that bell. You can tell it’s good news, can’t you? No slow, sorrowful tolling.”

  “He’s yanking that bell rope hard,” Graham agreed. “Giving it some joy, for a truth.”

  As Mama tilted her head toward the sound of the bell, a shadow of concern crossed her face. “Victoria, you better go down there and see about your daddy. Make sure he’s not overdoing it.”

  Mama always knew when Tori needed a few minutes alone. Tori reached for Samantha, but she had crawled over into Graham’s lap and was petting Chaucer’s nose. She didn’t want to give up that treasured spot.

  “Leave her,” her mother said. “We’ll watch her.”

  “Scout and I can go see about Daddy,” Lorena volunteered. She had Scout’s collar to keep him from knocking over anything else.

  “No. You need to take Mrs. Jenkins her groceries. You’d better go on now. She might have heard the bell and be worried.”

  “Okay. I’ll let her know the war’s over,” Lorena said. “She’ll be happy. Maybe she’ll tell me a story.”

  “You’re the only person in Rosey Corner who knows what she’s talking about,” Tori said. Miss Jenkins was hard of hearing and was always thinking people said something different than what they actually said.

  “I never know either. We just make it up as we go. As long as she’s smiling, and she’ll be smiling if I take her a few of those cinnamon candies.” Lorena eyed the jar of candies on the counter. “They’re her favorite.”<
br />
  “Not to mention yours.” Mama’s smile returned as she scooped a few pieces out of the jar into a paper bag. Then she put some in another bag for Tori. “In case all that rope pulling has brought on your father’s cough. These sometimes help him.”

  “I won’t be long,” Tori said.

  “Take your time,” her mother said.

  “No reason to hurry.” Graham settled deeper in the chair with Samantha.

  “No hurry,” Samantha echoed his words.

  She was talking more and more. Tori had to fight the urge to write every new word down the way she had all Samantha’s firsts to save for Sammy before she got the telegram. Missing in action. His ship torpedoed. When the confirmation came that Sammy was in a Japanese prison camp, she’d thought that was good. He was alive. She prayed and prayed. He was tough. He’d make it. Mike was in a prison camp too in Germany. God would take care of them. He had to. But he hadn’t. At least not Sammy.

  Tears gathered again behind her eyes, and she turned toward the door before anybody could notice.

  The August sun beat down so hot the asphalt was sticky underfoot. Scout started to follow her, but when Lorena came out with Mrs. Jenkins’s groceries, he ran back to her. He was Lorena’s dog, but that didn’t keep Tori from feeling even more alone in the midst of the jubilation.

  A man blew his horn and waved as his car passed her. Smiling. Happy. She had no idea who he was. Some women were out in their yards talking about the news, but not Mrs. Burgin. She stayed inside, peering out the window where a gold star hung for her son killed at Normandy. For a second, Tori considered calling out to her. But what could she say? Nothing that hadn’t already been said a thousand times. Words couldn’t bring her son home.

  Out in front of the new mechanic’s shop, a group of men shouted back and forth to one another to be heard over the clanging church bell. Clay Weber spotted Tori and peeled away from the others. And where a moment before she’d felt too alone after Scout deserted her, now she wanted to be alone.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t like Clay. He was a nice enough fellow. He and Sammy had been friends in school, but Clay had to drop out after his father died suddenly. His mother needed him to work the farm and keep food on the table for his younger sisters and brothers. Mrs. Weber was always saying how blessed she was to have such a good son. As it turned out, the farm kept Clay out of the army. He tried to enlist, but the government said his patriotic duty was to keep milking cows and raising corn. The country had to eat.