Come the Spring (Walnut Grove #1)
Marcella DiPaolo
Douglas McGuire was coming back home after serving in the Union Army for four long years. He had left his father’s farm where he had left his wife, and two small daughters. His mother and father had promised to take care of them while he served in the army serving his country. Doug didn’t get much mail while he was away, and he didn’t get to send many letters home either. He couldn’t wait to see his family again. He knew that his daughters would be so big he probably wouldn’t recognize them…and they probably wouldn’t even remember him. He was prepared for that. What he wasn’t prepared for was to see the family farm looking so deserted and falling apart when he rode up the lane…what happened to it while he was gone?
Then, he saw his father…when had he gotten so old and frail? Where was his mother and wife? Were those his two little girls? They looked so different…they had grown so big. And then he learned that his mother and his wife had died over a year ago, and he didn’t even know about it! That damn war had kept him apart from his family when they needed him the most! How was he going to pull this place back together and make it into a thriving farm again and into a home for his two little girls? He knew he couldn’t do it alone; he needed help in the worst way…but from where?
Laine Temple and Libby Lane lived in Laurence, Kansas. They had lost their husbands and for Libby, also her ten-year-old son when Quantrill’s Raiders came and killed them in the Laurence massacre. They needed a new start…Laurence held too many memories for them. They saw a letter from a man who needed help in getting his farm up and running again and in taking care of his two young daughters, it was from a Mail Order Bride Agency. Laine answered the letter but let him know that they didn’t want to marry him…but they would come and help him get his farm up and running again and take care of his family.
Doug also wrote to his best friend from the war, Zane McCoy. Zane’s family had been destroyed by the war. He had nobody and nothing to go home to. Doug asked him to come and help him out. Doug had nothing to lose in asking all three of these people to come and help him with his farm and family. He was desperate.
