Lost in a Haystack

By Hannah Adam

I love to read and one of my favorite periods in history is the American frontier in the 1850s.The nation was growing rapidly and expanding ever-westward. It took women and men of great courage to travel to the unknown, face the many real and imagined dangers, and work hard to carve out new homes, farms, and communities from the raw wilderness. I'm glad that I've been able to incorporate this love of history into my first romance novelette.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hannah Adam
• Release date: Feb 25, 2012
• ISBN: 9780985277956

Hannah Adam

Thank you for selecting my first novel. I enjoy writing, reading, and history—particularly the early history of my country. I guess my father raised me to love western movies and novels. My favorites are True Grit (both versions), Hondo, How the West was Won, and Vera Cruz, which also tells you some of my favorite western writers—Zane Grey, Louis L'amour, and Larry McMurtry. I hope you'll look for my future novels, and thank you again.

Book preview

Lost in the Haystack

by Hannah A. Adam

E-Book Edition

Published by East 74th Street Press*Washington at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 Hannah Anna Adam

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Thanks for respecting the hard work of the author.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the expressed written permission of the author. [e-mail]

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, locations, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-0-9852779-5-6

Dedicated to my only love ~

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

From the Author

Chapter 1

1852

Missouri

Looking in the small mirror, Dora Belle Cornell straightened the collar of her dress and touched her hair, smoothing a strand. The reflection pleased her, as her long brown hair fell to the middle of her back, framing a face accentuated by dimples when she smiled. Turning sideways, she ran her hands down to her waist, admiring her figure. Ma says that I’ve blossomed early, she thought. Well, Lordy, isn’t that to be expected? I’ve already turned fifteen. Shortly, she would be meeting her love, Lem Cole, and a delicious shiver of excitement went down her back.

Their relationship had started gradually months before at a barn dance. She had dressed in her green and white dress, and her mother had put a flower in her hair. After turning away from the apple cider bowl, there stood Lem, looking tall and handsome with his dark hair and wearing his best, go-to-church clothes.

They had greeted each other, followed by an awkward moment. Although living on neighboring farms for the last several years, they had never done more than wave from afar.

His mother had died the prior winter from that terrible sickness. Fast moving, it had struck many in Indian River Valley, traveling up the waterway and then back down. Neither the new doctor in town nor any of the home remedies had helped. The farming community had organized the barn dance as a way to get beyond those tragedies and to celebrate life on the frontier prairie.

She had finally said, I was sorry to hear about your mama.

For a moment, a sad look had come to his face, as he had softly replied, Pa calls it the winter of death.

Thankfully, the banjo and fiddle players had begun playing a zesty song, adding to the lively mood, as folks began clapping in time with the music. Sensing his reluctance to join the dancers, Dora Belle had taken matters into her own hands. Don’t you think the music is wonderful? Do you like to dance?

Blushing, he had stammered, Well . . . yes . . . but I’m not very good.

Pshaw, nothing to it, she had replied, breezily. All you have to do is move your feet to the music. Come on, she had said, grabbing his hand and pulling him into the middle of the swinging couples.

Afterward, they had danced every song, while he had maneuvered to avoid other boys who had tried to cut in.

To cool off, they had walked out of the barn and down to the river in the moonlight. She recalled that he had taken her hand—and she remembered her inner glow, as he had gently kept it in his.

Turning to her with a quizzical frown on his face, he had asked, With you living on the next farm, I wonder why I ain’t talked to you or really noticed you before?

Well, you looked, she had replied, but you just didn’t see what you were looking at, because I saw you.

He