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  Praise for

  Kim Vogel Sawyer

  “Kim Vogel Sawyer paints characters with exquisite detail emotionally and physically, then sets them in a story that transports the reader into a world equally as appealing as the people who live there. A captivating read, leaving you wanting more.”

  —LAURAINE SNELLING, author of  To Everything a Season, Wake the Dawn, and Heaven Sent Rain

  “The Great Depression was an era that required much grit and a great will to survive. Kim Vogel Sawyer has captured that spirit with characters full of determination, rich in heart, and strong in a sense of compassion. Room for Hope is not merely a nice novel or a touching story. It is a story of our heritage, a story of what it takes to live a life of mercy and love for the least of these. It is a story of reliance on God during the darkest of days. It is a look into our past to see that, truly, we are not all that different from our grandparents. It is our story.”

  —SUSIE FINKBEINER, author of  A Cup of  Dust: A Novel of the Dust Bowl

  “When Mercy Rains is a beautiful testimony to the power of  forgiveness. With three generations of characters to fall in love with, Kim Vogel Sawyer’s new novel kept me turning pages—and discovering surprises—to the very end. I especially enjoyed the Kansas setting and the restoration of a homestead that was a beautiful reflection of the restoration of  hearts and minds.”

  —DEBORAH RANEY, author of  The Face of the Earth and the Chicory Inn Novels series

  “A compelling cast of authentic characters, heart-wrenching mistakes and responses, and love, redemption, and restoration make When Mercy Rains by Kim Vogel Sawyer a must-read masterpiece.”

  —MONA HODGSON, author of  The Sinclair Sisters of  Cripple Creek series, The Quilted Heart omnibus, and Prairie Song

  “Quite simply, I loved this story from page one until the end. Kim has created a story that lovingly depicts the people, land, and culture of  Appalachia. Guide Me Home is a tale of  love and hope and faith that will hold your heart long after you reach the end.”

  —LAURIE ALICE EAKES, author of  The Mountain Midwife, 2016 Rita Finalist

  “Kim Vogel Sawyer’s historical novels always delve deep into the characters’ hearts. Room for Hope is a beautiful story with an unusual twist. Yes, I cried…A definite page-turner, this story kept my attention to the very end.”

  —SUSAN PAGE DAVIS, author of  Captive Trail and The Outlaw Takes a Bride

  BOOKS BY KIM VOGEL SAWYER

  Echoes of Mercy

  Just As I Am

  The Grace That Leads Us Home

  Guide Me Home

  Room for Hope

  Through the Deep Waters

  What Once Was Lost

  When Grace Sings

  When Love Returns

  When Mercy Rains

  GRACE AND THE PREACHER

  All Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version.

  The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.

  Trade Paperback ISBN 9780307731418

  Ebook ISBN 9780307731425

  Copyright © 2017 by Kim Vogel Sawyer

  Cover design and photography by Kelly L. Howard

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published in the United States by WaterBrook, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  WATERBROOK® and its deer colophon are registered trademarks of  Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Sawyer, Kim Vogel, author.

  Title: Grace and the preacher : a novel / by Kim Vogel Sawyer.

  Description: First Edition. | Colorado Springs, Colorado : WaterBrook, 2017.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016045564 (print) | LCCN 2016053437 (ebook) | ISBN 9780307731418 (paperback) | ISBN 9780307731425 (ebook) | ISBN 9780307731425 (electronic)

  Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Christian / Historical. | FICTION / Christian / Romance. | FICTION / Romance / Historical. | GSAFD: Christian fiction. | Love stories.

  Classification: LCC PS3619.A97 G73 2017 (print) | LCC PS3619.A97 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6— dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2016045564

  v4.1

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  Contents

  Cover

  Books by Kim Vogel Sawyer

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Reading Group Guide

  Acknowledgments

  For my cousins

  Larry, Gerald, Lyle, and Allen,

  who fortunately never asked me to rob a train.

  Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

  —2 CORINTHIANS 5:17

  Cooperville, Missouri

  March 1882

  Theophil Garrison

  “Hey, Theo, didja hear the news?”

  Theophil Garrison paused with the pitchfork tines buried in the mound of  hay and sent a sideways look at the barber’s son. The skinny youth nicknamed Red nearly danced in place on the packed-dirt floor of the livery stable, and an eager grin split his pimply face. The news must be powerful exciting to get Red so wound up. Theo could use a little excitement.

  Angling himself to face the boy, he held the pitchfork handle like a walking stick. “Don’t reckon I did. What is it?”

  “They’re comin’ home.”

  But not that much excitement. Chills attacked Theo from the inside out. Cotton filled his mouth. His muscles went quivery, and he lost his grip on the pitchfork. It fell against the stall wall, bounced, then slid onto the pile of straw. He unstuck his tongue from the roof of  his mouth and barked a nervous laugh. “You’re makin’ up stories. My cousins got a twelve-year sentence for that attempted robbery. They’ve only been gone ten.” He knew, because he’d served the same number of years laboring as hard as four men to atone for robbing his aunt and uncle of their sons.

  “State shortened things up ’cause of their good behavior.” The boy sniggered. “I guess it is kinda hard to bel
ieve.”

  Knowing Claight, Earl, and Wilton the way he did, it was impossible to believe.

  “But it’s true. I swear it on my mama’s grave.”

  Red’s mother wasn’t even dead. Theo scowled at the boy. “You’re foolin’ with me.”

  “Am not! I was standin’ right next to my pa when Sappington came runnin’ across the street from the telegraph office an’ read the wire message to your uncle.”

  “Mr. Sappington knows telegrams’re supposed to be private.”

  Red shrugged. “He only read it ’cause your uncle told him to. You know ol’ man Boyd can’t read a word hisself.”

  His neck felt stiff, his head heavy, but Theo managed a jerky nod. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.” Nobody in Theo’s family could read except him. He wouldn’t be able to, either, if  Granny Iva hadn’t sent him off to school when he was young. Uncle Smithers called Theo a sissy if  he even cracked the cover of a book. Of course, Uncle Smithers called Theo a sissy—and worse—for other reasons, too.

  “So your uncle told Sappington to read the telegram out loud right there in the barber shop. Every fella in the place heard it.”

  Which meant by evening every living soul in Cooperville would know that the Boyd brothers were on their way home from the state penitentiary. Theo gnawed his lip. Had the officials already let his cousins out? Jefferson City was a hundred miles away, but if the prison warden gave them train tickets to Springfield, they could cover that distance in half a day. Then an hour stage ride from Springfield, and—

  “Think they’ve forgot how you let the law catch ’em, Theo?”

  The last thing Claight said before the deputies took him, Earl, and Wilton away roared through Theo’s memory. “Just wait ’til we get out, boy. You’ll pay for this. You’ll pay.”

  They hadn’t forgotten. Theo snatched up the pitchfork and jammed it into the straw. “Thanks for tellin’ me about my cousins, but I got work to do, Red. You get on outta here now.”

  The boy smirked. “You might wanna get outta here, too.”

  Theo ignored the taunt and continued forking clean hay into the stall. When all the stalls were fresh and ready, he headed to the attached corral to collect the horses. As he grabbed the cheek strap for a tall, speckled gelding, another memory attacked.

  “You got the easy part, Theophil.” Earl never shortened up Theo’s name, and he had a way of making Theophil sound like a curse word. “All you gotta do is sneak the horses from the livery an’ make sure they’re waitin’ under the trestle.”

  Theo might’ve been only fifteen, but he understood that “sneak” really meant “steal,” something Granny Iva had taught him was wrong. He said so, and Earl gave him a clop on the side of the head that made his ears ring. “We gotta have horses to make our getaway after robbin’ that train, so you just bring ’em, you hear me, Theophil?”

  Theo had heard, had even nodded in agreement, but he hadn’t done it. And his cousins paid for his deceit with ten years of their lives.

  He released the gelding into the first stall with a pat on its neck and hurried back to the corral for another horse. Red’s parting comment—“You might wanna get outta here, too”—nipped in the back of  Theo’s mind. Red was young, prone to talking without thinking, but this time his words had merit.

  When the stagecoach rolled into town and Claight, Earl, and Wilton set foot on Cooperville’s Main Street, Theo intended to be far, far away.

  Fairland, Kansas

  Grace Cristler

  Even before the murky cloud stirred by the stagecoach’s wheels and horses’ hooves on the dirt road had begun to settle, Grace Cristler stepped from the little stone-block post office and onto the boardwalk. With a lace handkerchief pressed over her nose and mouth, she blinked rapidly and made her way through the billowing swirl of dust particles to the battered conveyance’s side.

  “Afternoon, Miss Cristler.” The driver grinned down at her, his teeth a slash of yellowish-white against his overgrown beard and grime-smeared face. “Watchin’ for me, were ya?”

  She lowered the handkerchief. “Why, of course. Everyone in town anticipates your once-a-week delivery of the mail, Mr. Lunger.” Every Friday at one o’clock, as dependable as Uncle Philemon’s key-wound mantel clock, the man pulled the stagecoach to a stop outside the post office. She often wondered how he managed to keep such a precise schedule given the poor road conditions and ever-changing Kansas weather. But not once during the three years she’d served as the town’s postmistress had he disappointed her with a late arrival.

  Lunger chuckled. He reached beneath the bench seat and pulled out a worn leather pouch stamped with the name Fairland, Kansas, USA. “I don’t reckon you come runnin’, though, ’cause you’re all excited about other folks’ mail.” The man had the audacity to wink. “You’re hopin’ for another letter.”

  Oh, such a brash thing to say! She frowned.

  “When’s your preacher due, Miss Cristler?”

  Her preacher? She pursed her lips tight and gave him her sternest look.

  He laughed. “Sometime next month, ain’t it?”

  Grace hoped the dust was still thick enough to hide the flush surely staining her face at the man’s impudent comments. She loved the close-knit community that had been her home since she was very young, but did everyone—including the United States mail carrier!—have to be privy to her personal affairs?

  “My uncle expects Reverend Dille by the end of  April.” She waved the handkerchief, pretending to swish dust but actually fanning her warm cheeks. “The entire congregation is very eager to make his acquaintance.”

  Mr. Lunger laughed, his thick beard bobbing against his bandanna. He yanked off  his shabby hat and used it to slap his thigh twice, raising another small cloud of dust. “All right, all right, I can take a hint. You ain’t already smitten with the new preacher.” He settled the hat back in place and winked again. “Least not more’n anyone else in town is. That make you feel better?”

  “Let me empty this bag and replace the contents with our outgoing mail. Please wait.”

  His laughter chased her back into the post office. Her fingers trembled as she made the transfer, and it took all of  her self-control not to search through the stack of envelopes for one addressed to her from Reverend Rufus Dille of Bowling Green, Missouri.

  With the bag in hand, she hurried out to the stagecoach. “Here you are, Mr. Lunger. Drive safely now. I’ll see you next week.”

  Humor still twinkled in his eyes, but he kept his smirking lips closed and gave her a nod in reply. He brought the reins down on the horses’ rumps, and the beasts strained forward.

  Grace hurried inside the building and snapped the door closed to avoid a second coating of dust for the day. She rounded the counter, her skirts swirling with her rapid strides, and reached for the pile of  letters. Was there one from Reverend Dille? From…Rufus? Her heart pat-pattered just thinking of  his given name. Of course there should be a letter. For the past twelve weeks, his missives had been as dependable as Mr. Lunger’s deliveries. She skimmed through the stack, seeking his bold, masculine script.

  Mr. Lunger’s taunt about her running to retrieve her own personal mail raised a wave of guilt. Wasn’t she the town’s postmistress, voted to the position by ballot? If she put her own wants above theirs, she would disappoint and betray the people who’d appointed her. By three o’clock folks would start arriving, asking her to check their boxes. She had a beholden duty to put their mail where it could be found.

  She stamped her foot against the floorboard. “I must do my job.” She picked up the entire stack, balanced it against her rib cage, and marched to the wood cubbies built behind the counter along the north wall. Midday sunshine streamed through the uncovered window and highlighted the face of each envelope as she sorted through the stack. She flicked the envelopes into their boxes, so familiar with the routine she didn’t even need to look at the numbers stamped on the little brass plates to ascertain the envelopes foun
d their rightful locations.

  She’d nearly reached the end of the stack when familiar handwriting leaped from the front of an envelope and sent her heart spinning in wild somersaults. Her hands stilled, and a smile pulled at her mouth. She drew several shallow breaths, a giggle of delight building in her throat. With slow, measured steps she moved to the counter and placed the envelope, faceup, in the middle of the darkly stained surface.

  Keeping her gaze fixed on her name—Miss Grace Cristler—written in black ink on creamy paper, she forced her feet back to the cubbies, where she finished sorting the remainder of the postcards and letters, this time more slowly and with shaking hands.

  Finally she slid the last envelope into its place, and she skipped to the counter and scooped the letter from Rufus against her thudding heart. The scent of spicy cloves, an aroma she’d come to associate with the man, rose from the crisp rectangle. She pulled in a slow, deep breath, savoring the essence, before she lowered the envelope, this time facedown, to the work surface once more and reached for the silver-plated opener stored in a little basket beneath the counter.

  As she slipped the tip of the opener beneath the edge of the envelope flap, the post office door swung open and the town’s milliner, Opal Perry, breezed into the building. Grace tossed the opener and envelope into the basket and aimed a smile at the older woman.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Perry. Have you come for your mail?”

  Mrs. Perry’s gray eyebrows rose. “Can you think of some other reason for me to visit the post office?”