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“No day for pleasure ridin’, miss. I wouldn’t stray six feet from town if’n I didn’t have to.”
    “Well, I have to. So, if you’ll please do as I ask?”
    The man hesitated. Then, just as Harold had done, he let her go about her own business. “Don’t rent carriages, only saddle horses.”
    That wasn’t what Hannah wanted at all, but her fear for the children overruled her fear for her own safety. “That will be fine.”
    She rented a horse that seemed as unhappy to go to work as it was swaybacked, but Hannah had grown up in the Wild West, or the next thing to it—Chicago. So she’d ridden a horse a time or two. Actually she thought carefully and decided exactly a time, not two. Well, therewas no help for it. The children needed her.
    She was tempted to ask for directions again from the man who rented her the horse, but she thought she had Harold’s advice memorized and didn’t want to muddy the waters.
    Zeb saddled the horse. He—Zeb, not the horse—got far too close for her nose’s comfort when he boosted her on its back. Then he led her out the door.
    Taking up the reins, she kicked the horse and the horse kicked back. Since she sat on top of the beast, it didn’t hurt her but it bounced her around some. Finally, with a slap on the backside from the hostler, she got the beast moving at a snail’s pace in the right direction.
    She hadn’t ridden five minutes on the lazy, uncooperative creature before she admitted to being hopelessly lost. The skittish horse twisted around and pranced sideways. If there’d ever been any trail, it’d been well and truly buried under the snow. Once she’d left the meager shelter of town, the wind whipped harder until the snowstorm became a full-fledged blizzard.
    Looking desperately, she searched for the prints of her own horse in the snow to make sure she hadn’t left the trail. The snow around her was trampled down in all directions by the nervous horse, and his prints were filling in fast. She gave the animal its head, hoping it would start for the barn, but the horse just let its head sag as if it didn’t have enough energy to move another step.
    Hannah kicked the horse, and it moved a few steps forward then stopped again. Her heart pounded as the snow drove itself through her thin coat. Fighting down panic, Hannah realized she’d become hopelessly lost in a Texas blizzard. She should have left Libby to Mr. . .  Grant for one night, because now Hannah would freeze to death in a blizzard and not be around to save her from her nightmarish fate.

F IVE
     
    L ibby snuggled up on Grant’s left knee and, with a smile, rested her head on his shoulder.
    Grant eased his toes closer to the fire with a blissful sigh and opened the book.
    Benny scrambled onto Grant’s right knee. Charlie sat on the floor with his back leaning against the stones that edged the fireplace. Joshua leaned on the other side of the fire playing “Silent Night” softly on his mouth harp. Christmas was just over, and the whole family still felt the glow of the holy season.
    Sadie and Marilyn sat at the table doing the studies Grant had set for them, but he wondered if the girls were really reading. Josh’s playing was too sweet to ignore. He could coax music out of that harmonica that could break a man’s heart or make him laugh out loud.
    When the music ended, Grant opened his well-worn copy of Oliver Twist . He produced it every time a new child came into the house. Grant had found it helped start the new young’uns talking about where they’d come from.
    Of course Charlie had that hostile look. Children with that look rarely talked about their lives before they came to Grant’s home. And Libby wasn’t likely to start in talking. But they could at least hear that a book had been written about some of what they’d been through. It was Grant’s way of letting them know he understood, and they weren’t alone.
    Grant looked up from the book before he began. “Dinner was good,