Rocky Mountain Dreams & Family on the Range by Danica Favorite (summer beach reads txt) 📕

gleaming with enough avarice to make her wonder how anyone could have seen anything other than what a cold, hard man he was. His laughter rang through the cavern, surely carrying through to the other tunnels where the others could hear. They were in grave danger.

Slade kicked the pick. “Start digging.”

Annabelle took the pick and started swinging it, aiming for the gap in the rock where she knew Joseph would be, but far enough away that she wouldn’t strike him with debris. She hoped.

“Help. Please,” she said the words as quietly as she could, but Slade immediately jumped up.

“Who you talking to? Who’s there?”

Annabelle spun. “I suppose your praying was just for show, so you have no idea what it looks like to truly pray.”

Her own words shamed her. How long had she merely given lip service to her faith? Making people think she believed when she had none? Even now, her faith was weak, so weak she could hardly defend it. But here, in the cleft of the rock, she had to believe that she was in the protection of a greater rock.

“Your God’s not going to help you. He didn’t help your family. Didn’t help mine. You think you’ve uncovered some elixir to make Him listen?”

She closed her eyes, trying to drown out the shame of his words. But just as the familiar darkness threatened to overtake her, another truth sprang to the back of her mind. And her mother’s voice came to her, clearer than anything else she’d heard in a long time.

It said in Isaiah, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

It didn’t matter what her thoughts were, or how she perceived the situation. The Lord’s purpose was far greater than she could see. She just had to believe.

“You hated me,” Slade’s voice taunted. “Because I didn’t get the doctor in time to save your brother. You thought I was too busy going after silver.”

Annabelle’s eyes flew open, and she looked at him. “I put my faith in the wrong man.”

“That you did.” He gave the kind of laugh Annabelle imagined only came from a truly wicked being.

And, with the most callous of looks she’d ever seen, he grinned. “Sorry.”

Rage boiled inside Annabelle at the unfairness of it all. How long she’d suffered for her supposedly rash judgment of this man, which, as it turned out, had been right all along. But then she remembered a passage from Genesis, when Joseph’s brothers feared that he would take retribution for what they had done to him. “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good, to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”

Whether Annabelle had been right or wrong, the Lord knew, and not only would He take full accounting of all that had gone on, everything, including all of this, would be used for the Lord’s purpose.

Oh, how she’d resented her father trying to comfort her with placating words of how the Lord’s will would be done. But now she understood. The Lord saw, and He knew.

Annabelle had a choice. To act in accordance with what the Lord had commanded her, or to act on her pain.

A flash on the other side of the rock caught Annabelle’s attention, and she noticed that Joseph had almost worked his way through.

“May the Lord have mercy on your soul,” she whispered, setting the pick down with a loud clank, and going to where Nugget sat, whimpering.

“What’s that?” Slade looked past her, toward the spot where Annabelle had been digging.

Moments later, his face mottled with rage, he spun. “You’ve been stalling so’s they can—”

“Annabelle, get Nugget out of the blast area so we can blow this rock.” Joseph’s voice rang through the cave.

She didn’t need another invitation. Annabelle grabbed Nugget by the hand and yanked her in the direction of the other tunnel. Though Slade’s men waited at the other end, at least it would offer them some protection from the blast until Joseph could get to them.

Slade shoved at her back. “Make way, you stupid—”

An explosion rocked the cavern. Rocks and debris flew everywhere, filling the area with so much dust Annabelle could hardly breathe. She covered her mouth with a sleeve as she pulled her handkerchief out of her pocket to cover Nugget’s. At least it would afford the child some protection.

The heavy weight of Slade’s body pressed her to the ground, and she shifted to keep most of the weight of the two adults off a squirming Nugget.

“Are you all right?” Annabelle choked the words out, thankful that at least she knew Nugget was alive. Slade, on the other hand, remained a dead weight on top of her.

Nugget coughed, and Annabelle thought she might have heard the little girl say yes.

“Don’t try to talk. The dust’s too thick.”

“Hey, boss!” A man’s voice called from the other end of the tunnel. “You ready for us to get the silver?”

Though the heavy man on top of her was most uncomfortable, at least he wasn’t able to answer and warn them that rescuers were on the way.

“There’s a lot of dust,” Annabelle called back. “Best wait a while.”

She could hear murmuring, probably the men discussing why she’d answered instead of Slade. And no quick retort came to her to explain. Instead, she felt the weight being moved off her, giving her room to shift toward a dim light.

Two familiar eyes glowed back at her.

Joseph!

Without thinking, she wrapped her arms around him, feeling the warmth of a body she’d believed dead.

“Shh...it’s all right. Where’s Nugget?”

Of course. Annabelle should have realized that his sister would be a priority in his mind. She shouldn’t have... Her face heated. Had she truly put her arms around this man? No matter what she might have vowed otherwise, she’d had no business doing so.

As Annabelle moved out of the