White Rose Author Tanya Stowe

Tender Touch by Tanya Stowe

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Lacy Butler is graced with the gift of healing. She can save strangers-even those undeserving-yet fails to save her mother. Rejecting her gift, God, and society, she's content to live alone high above the mining town of Harperville. But her solitude is shattered when Royce Darnell builds a water flume through the middle of her mountain. To protect her sanctuary, Lacy sabotages his efforts. Little does she expect Royce to track her through a blizzard and end up half frozen to death on her doorstep. She can heal him, but why should she when he threatens to steal her peace...and her heart?

With the livelihood of the miners and their families depending on his project, Royce refuses to stop building, no matter how good the reason or how lovely the masked saboteur turns out to be. Besides, he's convinced God wants Lacy to use her gift for good and not to hole up in her cabin like a reticent recluse afraid of human contact. But first, she must learn to trust, and Lacy doesn't trust anyone, not Royce and especially not God. Soon Royce finds himself in a battle to save the two things he loves the most-Harperville and Lacy. Is his faith strong enough to save them both?

Excerpt:

High California Sierras 1861

Royce Darnell stared at Stumpy McPherson from beneath the brow of his tan felt hat. “Are you sure you secured the chuck wagon last night?”

The older man nodded before he sent a stream of brown spittle across the snow. “I’m sure.” He wiped at the corner of his mouth where his white beard was stained brown. “There ain’t no way them raccoons could’ve got to the food. Someone had to open it up.”

Royce looked up at the gray, pre-dawn sky. “How much food can you salvage?”

“Enough for breakfast and that’s it.”

Royce brushed past Stumpy, headed up the hill to the chuck wagon. As he got close, the odor of coffee and sorghum carried. Even before he saw the damage, he could smell the havoc created by the raiding raccoons. Sugar, flour, and beans were strewn across the muddied snow.

Stumpy gestured to a tin of lard, resting in a pile of dead pine cones. “That’s about the only thing they didn’t eat. That and my chaw of tobacco.”

Royce stooped to examine the small tracks trampled into the dirty snow. They led in a clear path straight to the trees. “How did you secure the wagon?”

“I tied it with ropes and knots a man couldn’t undo.”

“Where are the ropes now?”

“Disappeared. Ain’t no sign of them. I expect if he’d left them, we’d seen they were cut.”

Royce’s jaw tightened. Three incidents in three weeks. Someone was determined to drive Royce and his men away from this area of the mountain. He glanced up to see the same certainty in Stumpy’s eyes. “There’s got to be tracks somewhere.”

“I already looked. There ain’t nothin’.”

“Stumpy, this isn’t the work of Indian ghosts.”

Royce and his crew had been building a water flume up the mountain for almost two months. The incidents hadn’t started until they had reached this exact spot, close to the ancient burial ground. The mystery and location had sparked rumors of a haunting.

“Did I say it was ghosts?” Stumpy asked. “I’m just repeatin’ what some of the men say.”

“Well, don’t repeat it. It only gives it credence and that’s what our vandal wants. He’s watched our movements for a while. It isn’t coincidence that he waited till we got close to the burial ground to stage his little scenes.”

Royce made a circuit around the wagon. With his gaze glued to the snow, he followed the prints into the dark shadows of the thick timber. He found a piece of raw bacon at the base of a trunk. Leftover biscuit crumbs were trampled by the well-defined prints of a deer.

“What’d I tell you?” Stumpy pointed to the tiny prints. “Ain’t nothin’ but raccoons.”

“And deer.” Something about the tracks bothered Royce. He turned back for a second look. The pointed hoof marks danced in a circle before they led off in a different direction. Royce followed the deer trail, wondering why the tracks were so blurred. Suddenly, he saw a flat rounded print. He hurried forward and found another and another, all trampled by the deer tracks. A few feet further on, almost obliterated by a flurry of pointed hooves, he saw the print of a boot. He outlined the print with his fingers.

No doubt. A man, walking on the balls of his feet, used the animal tracks to hide his prints. Every few steps he grew tired and his heel came down in a well-defined mark.

Stumpy shook his head. “I can’t believe I missed that.”

“Believe it. Our intruder is one clever fellow.”

 Discussion Question -- 

Is it true that Jesus focused on three things during his ministry on earth as the book states?

According to theologian Dr. Frances McNutt, yes.  When you study Jesus' stories, you see that he did 3 things: taught, healed the sick and cast out demons.  His purpose was to ease the suffering of the world, to show that the Kingdom of God is at hand, here and now.