Piecrust Promise Read online

  Books by Nanette Kinslow

  Stavewood

  South of Stavewood

  Home to Stavewood

  The Secret of Stavewood

  Sweet New England

  Ill Repute

  Pie Crust Promise

  The Matter with Margaret

  “For lovers of romance Ms. Kinslow’s novel has hit the jackpot. If you are a fan of historical romance, or have ever been truly in love, you will find (her) books nearly impossible to put down.”

  - Minnesotan Intelligencer

  “Nanette has really come into her own and found her passion I think! I LOVE the Stavewood Saga and find myself getting lost in the book and unable to stop reading, I'm losing sleep and don't care!”

  - Donna Tate

  “Ms. Kinslow’s engaging story-telling style makes the book hard to put down.”

  - News of Delaware County

  “…Characters quickly become well known as Ms. Kinslow provides insight to their personalities with her excellent way with words. I found her books… difficult to put down...”

  - Muriel Zondervan

  “…I could lose myself in the second Stavewood volume and forget my woes! It is a wonderful continuation of great characters in an idyllic setting that has me glad I don't have to wait long for volume 3.”

  - Gail Cooks

  “I totally enjoyed Sweet New England. I could not put the book down. The characters were well written, each having their own unique personalities. I have studied some historical events from this time period which made the details of how the people lived and thought day to day more interesting.”

  -Ed Cohen

  “Ms. Kinslow did it again. I have read all of her books and have been equally enthralled with the stories in each and every one of them. She has a definite way of writing that draws you into the story and makes you feel a part of it. Be prepared to not getting anything else done once you start reading because you will not want to put the book down. I anxiously await the release of her next story.”

  - Anna M. Glines

  “Love, love, love! Can't wait for the story(s) to be continued!”

  - Kathy Kaminski

  “Kinslow has a magnificent talent in portraying … strong character(s). Fantastic reads! If you are a believer in all things "meant to be" these novels will not disappoint!”

  - Diana Clark

  “Kinslow connects from the first page. Every time I stopped reading I couldn't wait to pick it back up.”

  - Kathie Fleischauer

  “…You totally become involved! The author is extremely talented I hope the series continues on.”

  - Patti Ranney Shadrick

  “Great character development. Thanks Nanette- good job - but thanks for hours of enjoyment for this voracious reader!”

  - Debra A. Johnson

  “Turn three pages into Ms. Kinslow's (books) and you will find yourself whisked away as if in the arms of the handsome heros painted with the pen of pure romance. Her prose will have you standing in the room …, a part of the magnificent world she has created. I would not be surprised to hear that one day this newcomer is considered one of the great female writers of our time.”

  - Laureen Silverman

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to my editor and publisher for your continued patience and unwavering support.

  A special word of thanks to Jessica Lyle Ramsey for her amazing apple crumb pie.

  Piecrust

  Promise

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

  2013 Lighthouse Publishing

  Copyright © 2013 by Nanette Kinslow

  ISBN-13: 978-1494222536

  ISBN-10: 1494222531

  All Rights Reserved

  Published in the United States by Lighthouse Group Publishing

  Cover design by Pat Warn

  This book is dedicated to my dear daughter,

  Jessica.

  She always makes me proud and knows that

  a great pie is a work of art.

  Piecrust Promise

  A novel

  By

  Nanette Kinslow

  Promises Like Pie-crust

  Promise me no promises,

  So will I not promise you:

  Keep we both our liberties,

  Never false and never true:

  Let us hold the die uncast,

  Free to come as free to go:

  For I cannot know your past,

  And of mine what can you know?

  You, so warm, may once have been

  Warmer towards another one:

  I, so cold, may once have seen

  Sunlight, once have felt the sun:

  Who shall show us if it was

  Thus indeed in time of old?

  Fades the image from the glass,

  And the fortune is not told.

  If you promised, you might grieve

  For lost liberty again:

  If I promised, I believe

  I should fret to break the chain.

  Let us be the friends we were,

  Nothing more but nothing less:

  Many thrive on frugal fare

  Who would perish of excess.

  by Christina Georgina Rossetti

  (1830-1894)

  Prologue

  At high noon on April 22, 1889, the United States government opened up what was then called the Unassigned Lands of the Indian Territory. Thousands came by train, on horseback, in covered wagons, and on foot to wait until the signal was given by the blue-uniformed troops that set in motion the Oklahoma Land Rush. Some came for fortune, some out of curiosity, but most came out of desperation. When the signal shot was fired a horde of determined settlers would dash to claim a parcel of land on the prairie landscape. For many it was a race for survival.

  This is a story of two people seeking a new land and a new life.

  Chapter One

  In the night lay only shadows. That was best in the mind of Corinne Greslin who did not want to see her life in the light of day as she left it all behind. She didn’t want to see the expanses of land, the cabin, or the acres of bluebonnets spreading across the fields. If she headed out early and did not look back, she might never again have to see the shadow of the Guadalupe Mountains in the west or the falcon who had made her home on the ridge, soaring in ever widening circles in the vast Texas sky.

  Cinching the saddle snug against the belly of her young stallion, Boomer, she pressed her forehead against his withers and tried to catch her breath. Corinne was afraid. The one feeling she loathed more than any was fear. She did not fear the unfamiliar, she told herself, or leaving her home and all the painful memories it held. She didn’t even think she feared the land rush she was hoping to join. Corinne wondered why exactly she felt so terrified. If she found no viable reason then it was just her emotions running amuck again, she reasoned. She whistled for her dog, Mince.

  Corinne Greslin was young, just days past her twenty-third birthday, though she had only recently thought about her age. It was a requirement of the United States Government that she be at least twenty-one if she were to become a landowner. At five-foot-eight she was tall for a woman, her face was finely featured, her complexion was fair and her hair was a deep chestnut brown. When it was not wrapped and bound beneath her broad-brimmed hat it fell smooth over her shoulders and down her back. Her figure was slender and shapely beneath her heavy dress and woolen cape.

  Mince bounded from the coop onto Boomer’s back, as he had done since he was a pup, and took his place just behind the saddle
horn. Boomer was only a colt when Hank had brought him home, she recalled. It was as if the dog and pony were siblings.

  Corinne stood perfectly still for a moment as she saw the glimmer of the approaching sunlight and felt her resolve melt away. She could not leave without looking back. A piece of her heart was buried there and she had to say goodbye. She turned and waited and as the sun breached the horizon the soft green of the field came into focus. She looked over the homestead and memories raced across her mind’s eye. A soft breeze blew gently, like a breath, and she could smell the hint of honeysuckle on the air. It was warm against her cheek and sorrowful, as sorrowful as her recollections. In only a handful of days all of it, the land and her home would go back to the bank. The memories would remain, tucked away in her heart and mind. Corinne thought she might have preferred that the bankers took the memories instead and left her with the land. The hard dry land.

  She remembered Hank laughing with the men who had come to help build the low cabin and wondered why she never noticed at the time that, while the men toiled for weeks, Hank never lifted a finger. For the next four years he would boast about it in any saloon that would have him, his big gun on his hip and his bravado plain on his face.

  Corinne remembered Dustin learning to walk in the yard among the chickens and the drying laundry. Now his tiny grave lay amid the spring flowers on the hill. She felt numb. That grave had taken all her tears, while Hank then had an excuse for his drinking. He called it drowning his sorrows. Corinne faced hers alone.

  None of it had gone right, she thought. They were supposed to be in love. Hank told her they didn’t need a judge to make that real and she wanted to believe that. They were free to be who they were. They wouldn’t cast a shadow over one another. She could be herself, he’d told her and come and go as she pleased. They were almost always together. There would be no formal marriage, no promises, no papers and no vows, and none of the bindings that come with a legal commitment. Until she found she was expecting. Then only one of them came and went as he pleased and things changed. Corinne became convinced that love is about commitments. Love is a promise that you keep for one another.

  Corinne never once saw him hold that baby. Never once. Hank kept coming around whenever he was full of whiskey and wanted a woman, or a bed to sleep off his latest binge. In a day or two he’d be up again, easily driven off by the cries or the curiosity of his son. He’d polish up that weapon he carried and kiss the barrel of cold steel. Then Corinne would watch him stagger up the trail and away from her and Dustin.

  One too many nights in town, one too many whiskeys, one too many mouthy remarks and he too lay beneath the ground. His grave wasn’t here beside that sweet child. He had never wanted to be here in life so why should he rest here now? He could lie cold in the ground in the cemetery on the outskirts of town.

  Legally however, the land belonged to Hank. They never had committed to each other in marriage and he never had drawn up a will. Now that he was gone she had no claims to the land. The bank had given her notice to quit the premises.

  “You rest easy, baby,” Corinne said under her breath. “Rest easy in this valley.” Her sob was heard only by Mince and Boomer and the wind. Corinne stepped into the stirrup and slid onto her saddle. Everything she needed to start her journey was tied to her mount. She slid her palm along the smooth silver fur of her dog waiting in front of her, checked the pistol tucked into the saddle, and kicked Boomer to an easy trot. Now she only looked ahead.

  Chapter Two

  The sun rose warm as she rode and Corinne dismounted and flung off her cape. She watched Mince as he bounded from the Boomer’s back in search of fresh water and took note where he disappeared into the brush. When he returned promptly, his tongue dripping wet, she led her horse from the trail and knelt beside the meandering stream of sparkling water, splashing several handfuls on her face.

  Corinne looked out over the landscape, watching a pair of butterflies as they tumbled through the air energetically. The contrast of their lively flight against the lazy sway of the tall grass seemed like a perfect illustration of how she felt. Her ride had been easy but her heart beat fast. She felt anxious in the soft warmth of the afternoon. The sun was nearly at its zenith now and she tried to measure the distance until she reached Daniel’s ranch. Her brother and his family would expect her the following day and she knew she could count on him to have all the information she needed on the law and the land run. Maybe the run was what troubled her, she thought. It would be only a few hours, Corinne assured herself. A few hours of madness among the crowds and then she’d have her land and settle down. She’d start fresh. She’d bake her pies and build a market and find peace on her own. Alone. She’d do it all herself. But first she needed the land.

  Corinne called to her dog and waited for him as he leapt back onto the horse. “Mince,” she said, as she climbed up behind him. “You and Boomer. Why, you are the only guys for me.”

  The stallion nickered at the sound of his name and Mince sat up in the saddle and tried to lick her face.

  When her memory turned backwards again she could hear Hank’s voice. “We talked about this and you agreed you didn’t want to marry. You wanted to be your own person you said. Now you’re carryin’ a child and suddenly I’m supposed to be around every minute? Cory, that just ain’t goin’ to happen. You can’t set the rules and then just up and change ‘em when it suits you. You want to be so all fired up to have a baby, be my guest. I wish you a hell of a lot of luck but it ain’t for me. Don’t start cryin’ now,” he’d said. “This is exactly what’s wrong with women.” Again he walked away.

  Corinne had watched her belly swell and soon felt her baby alive inside her. She’d only asked him to share the joy. She was still milking the cows and driving the plow, still chopping the wood and wringing out his clothes on wash day.

  As she journeyed, her memories jumped to those times early on when they’d ridden together. He’d hire on at some ranch as a hand and she’d work in the kitchen. Her pies were her finest art and she could make them out of any fruit, nut, berry or meat. But Hank had a heavy hand with a horse and never liked to be told anything, especially by the men who had hired him. Sooner or later it would mean another ride, another ranch, another kitchen. When no more ranchers wanted Hank they decided to get their own place. Was it them, she asked herself? Had it always been her trying to settle him down the way he claimed? Was she all talk of freedom and still too damn domestic, like he said?

  Corinne heard a rattle from a bush beside the trail and felt Mince stiffen. She eased Boomer to the other side of the trail. The sun hung low in the sky and Corinne looked over her left shoulder as it dipped to the edge of the horizon. She led the animals to a stand of trees in the distance where she would make camp for the night and try to stop her recollecting.

  Mince plopped down beside Corinne as she lay on her bedroll, her fingers interlaced behind her head. The stars blinked in the heavens and she tried to distract herself, naming all the constellations she knew. She studied the Big Dipper, clear in the moonless sky and heard the far off hoot of an owl. It sounded mournful, she thought, like the utterance of a broken heart echoing in the night air. The dew settled on her face and Corinne closed her eyes.

  “Hush, little baby,” she had cooed to Dustin. “Daddy’s gone for the doctor. He’ll be here soon.” His tiny cheek was hot and flushed against her own. Corinne had tried to bring down his temperature in every way she knew. When he had a second set of tremors she’d ridden into town with the fevered child against her chest. She’d seen the Big Dipper that night too, but only later after the Lord had taken him. His golden curls would bounce no more as he toddled in the yard. Corinne could not bear the pain. She could not bear the weight of her heart breaking. When she stepped out of the doctor’s home, and saw Hank fondling a woman beside the saloon’s open door, her bitter anguish became an even more bitter anger.

  It was as if she was watching herself, she remembered, as if by some means she w
as removed. She saw herself run at him across the road, then grab him from behind, forcing him to face her. She’d spat in his face, her eyes red with pain and anger.

  “Dustin is gone!” she had screamed. “I waited, we waited, for you to fetch the doctor, but you never did. He said you never came for him. You heartless bastard! While that poor baby died, you drank. I should lay you in the ground, Henry Fisher. As sure as you let your son die I should lay you in the ground!” Corinne had fallen to the rough boards of the walkway sobbing pitifully while Hank try to lie away who she was to the woman he had been kissing. His betrayal burned itself into her heart as her throat tightened.

  Corinne would not need to lay Hank Fisher in the cold hard ground. Another would do it for her only a few nights later. Hank, drunk as usual, had gotten out of hand with a young man’s wife and wouldn’t tolerate being put in his place. When he drew his gun, the sober man was faster and Hank was dead before he hit the barroom floor.

  Now all of Corrine’s hopes were sewn up in the Oklahoma Land Rush. It was the only future she could see for herself.

  She rolled onto her side and wrapped her arms around Mince’s chest, pulling him close to her. Corinne was sure that when she had returned home without her child Mince had mourned him too. “The dog gave more of a damn than you ever did, Hank,” she said aloud. Corinne lay silent, listening to the sounds of the night. She never felt afraid when she was angry. Hate makes you strong, she thought. Really strong.