The Wedding Promise

      No one is more surprised than Sunny Licht when Noah Whitmore proposes. She’s a scarlet woman and an unwed mother—an outcast even in her small Quaker community. But she can’t resist Noah’s offer of a fresh start in a place where her scandalous past is unknown.

      In Sunny, the former Union soldier sees a woman whose loneliness matches his own. When they arrive in Wisconsin, he’ll see that she and her baby daughter want for nothing...except the love that war burned out of him. Yet Sunny makes him hope once more—for the home they’re building, and the family he never hoped to find.

      “Sunny, will thee be my wife and go west with me?”

      Noah’s hand was large and rough but so gentle, and his touch warmed her. Then she did something she had barely learned to do—she prayed. Dear Father, should I marry Noah Whitmore?

      She waited, wondering if the Inner Light the Quakers believed in would come to her now, when she needed it so. She glanced up into Noah’s eyes and his loneliness beckoned her, spoke to her own lonesome heart. “Yes,” she whispered, shocking herself. Her words pushed goose bumps up along her arms.

      “May God bless your union with a love as rich and long as Eve’s and mine,” Solomon said. The elderly man’s words were emphasized by the tender look he turned to his spouse, who beamed at him in turn.

      Oh, to be loved that way. Sunny turned to Noah and glimpsed stark anguish flickering in his dark, dark eyes. Maybe Noah, born and raised among these gentle people, would be capable of love like that.

      But what could I possibly have to offer in the way of love?

       About the Author

      LYN COTE and her husband, her real-life hero, became in-laws recently when their son married his true love. Lyn already loves her daughter-in-law and enjoys this new adventure in family stretching. Lyn and her husband still live on the lake in the north woods, where they watch a bald eagle and its young soar and swoop overhead throughout the year. She wishes the best to all her readers. You may email Lyn at [email protected] or write her at P.O. Box 864, Woodruff, WI 54548. And drop by her blog, www.strongwomenbravestories.blogspot.com, to read stories of strong women in real life and in true-to-life fiction. “Every woman has a story. Share yours.”