His Brother's Fiancee. Jasmine Cresswell

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      But in one house, there was still hope.

      Isabella Trueblood had come to Carmelita in the late 1800s with her father, blacksmith Saul Trueblood, and her mother, Teresa Collier Trueblood. The family had traveled from Indiana, leaving their Quaker roots behind.

      Young Isabella grew up to be an intelligent woman who had a gift for healing and storytelling. Her dreams centered on the boy next door, Foster Carter, the son of Chester and Grace.

      Just before the bad times came in 1918, Foster asked Isabella to be his wife, and the future of the Carter spread was secured. It was a happy union, and the future looked bright for the young couple.

      Two years later, not one of their relatives was alive. How the young couple had survived was a miracle. And during the epidemic, Isabella and Foster had taken in more than twenty-two orphaned children from all over the county. They fed them, clothed them, taught them as if they were blood kin.

      Then Isabella became pregnant, but there were complications. Love for her handsome son, Josiah, born in 1920, wasn’t enough to stop her from grow-ing weaker by the day. Knowing she couldn’t leave her husband to tend to all the children if she died, she set out to find families for each one of her orphaned charges.

      And so the Trueblood Foundation was born. Named in memory of Isabella’s parents, it would become famous all over Texas. Some of the orphaned children went to strangers, but many were reunite with their families. After reading notices in news-papers and church bulletins, aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents rushed to Carmelita to find the young ones they’d given up for dead.

      Toward the end of Isabella’s life, she’d brought together more than thirty families, and not just her orphans. Many others, old and young, made their way to her doorstep, and Isabella turned no one away.

      At her death, the town’s name was changed to Trueblood, in her honor. For years to come, her simple grave was adorned with flowers on the anni-versary of her death, grateful tokens of appreciation from the families she had brought together.

      Isabella’s son, Josiah, grew into a fine rancher and married Rebecca Montgomery in 1938. They had a daughter, Elizabeth Trueblood Carter, in 1940. Elizabeth married her neighbor William Garrett in 1965, and gave birth to twins Lily and Dylan in 1971, and daughter Ashley a few years later. Home was the Double G ranch, about ten miles from Trueblood proper, and the Garrett children grew up listening to stories of their famous great-grandmother, Isabella. Because they were Truebloods, they knew that they, too, had a sacred duty to carry on the tradition passed down to them: finding lost souls and reuniting loved ones.

      Contents

       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

       Epilogue

      CHAPTER ONE

      EMILY SUTTON’S fiancé caught up with her in the library of the elegant San Antonio mansion where he lived with his parents. Michael Chambers was normally blessed with a ready smile, but Emily noticed that today he looked somber, even a little nervous. How odd, she thought. Michael’s self-confidence was usually as vast as the state of Texas; it was one of the characteristics that had first attracted her to him.

       “Hi, Michael, what’s up? You’re looking worried.” She was already running late for her appointment at Finders Keepers, but she paused in the doorway, her arms clutched around the massive three-ring binder that contained the complex details of their wedding arrangements.

       Emily shifted the heavy weight of the binder from one arm to the other. There were moments when she felt sure the inauguration of the president of the United States couldn’t necessitate more paperwork than the elaborate wedding ceremony her mother and Mrs. Chambers had planned over the past three months. Her mother had loved every minute of the planning, of course, even though she and Mrs. Chambers both complained repeatedly that the engagement was much too short for them to put on a truly stylish affair.

       Thank goodness Michael needed to have the wedding ceremony behind him before he embarked on his election campaign for governor of Texas, Emily reflected wryly. Otherwise she couldn’t begin to visualize what their respective mothers might have attempted. Importing the royal guards from Buckingham Palace, maybe?

       Emily grinned, glad that she’d been able to make her mother so happy just by saying yes to all her fancy wedding plans. She leaned against the door, once again shifting the weight of the binder to her other arm. Michael still remained silent and she felt her first twinge of true concern.

       “You look really worried, honey. Tell me what’s wrong.”

       He didn’t respond and her stomach lurched with a premonition of disaster. “Michael, talk to me. Has there been an accident? Oh my gosh, is it one of my parents?”

       “No, not that…”

       “Is your dad’s heart playing up again? Please don’t try to cushion the blow—you’re just making me more scared.”

       He shifted from one foot to the other, so ill at ease that his discomfort seemed almost feigned. “I can’t marry you,” he said, avoiding her gaze. “We have to call off the wedding.”

       Shock momentarily paralyzed СКАЧАТЬ