About the Book:
Titan Dinsmore loves his family, but as the youngest of five, he craves his older siblings’ respect—and a little distance. A chance meeting at the train station with a forlorn young lady turns into a growing attraction between them. But Titan quickly learns there is a difference between wanting to be treated as an adult and truly stepping up to lead. How can he help tenderhearted Nora see beyond her father’s abandonment and rest in the love of her Heavenly Father? And will his secret plan to restore her family for the ideal Christmas together win Nora’s undying admiration or only lead to greater heartache?
This warm, standalone Christmas novella highlights a lesser-known member of the beloved Dinsmore family in the
Finding Home series. With all the charm of a Victorian Christmas and yet the realities of navigating difficult relationships in a Christlike manner, this book is one to be savored throughout the holiday season and beyond.
Purchase Link: Amazon
Excerpt:Chicago, Illinois
Friday, December 13, 1867Titan Dinsmore sank onto a bench outside Wells Street Station and stifled a yawn against the inside of his elbow. A gust of wind carrying an icy edge cut down the street, picking up refuse and the remainder of the paper boy’s stack, scattering newsprint across the wooden sidewalk. Titan buttoned his coat, rewrapped his muffler, and stuffed his gloved hands deep in his pockets as he watched the boy scurry past, snatching at papers.
Titan’s hand hit the rolled medical journal he had tucked into his coat pocket. Really, he should pull it out, rather than sit idly. Another yawn hit him, and he couldn’t produce the motivation to study.
The lamplighter came by, and the dim corner where Titan sat was soon bathed in yellow. A train whistle blew behind him, bringing two businessmen racing down the street in their suits before disappearing into the station. Titan settled back onto the bench. Empty dray wagons left the station, laborers sauntered past on their way home for dinner, and shoppers shifted packages in their arms as they carefully crossed the street.
Titan pulled his watch from his waistcoat pocket and opened it. A quarter to seven, and the streetcar was nowhere in sight. His grumbling stomach punctuated the knowledge that he was going to be late for family dinner. The only dinner besides Sunday that he even made it to most weeks, even though he technically still lived at the manse. More truthfully, he lived at Cook County Hospital and only slept at home.
Titan’s hand contracted, snapping the watch shut. Out of nowhere, a body stumbled against his knees, falling across his lap and filling his vision with yards of dark wool fabric.
“Oh!”
The exclamation escaped from Titan unbidden. The body, uttering the same surprised sound, scrambled off him, tripping across his feet in its escape. Titan’s hand shot out to steady a coat-covered arm. The lady turned toward him, and he got his first view of her wide blue eyes and scarlet cheeks.
“I am so sorry. Pardon me. I didn’t see you there.”
Titan stared at her as her words sank in. She hadn’t fallen onto him. She’d actually tried to sit on his lap.
He came to his feet out of habit as he tucked the watch back into his pocket. The young lady took a step backward. Titan hadn’t meant to tower over her but hadn’t realized how small she was until he stood.
“It happens all the time,” Titan said, not quite untruthfully. “Don’t think anything of it.” Giving her a parting nod, he sank back onto the bench and looked down the street for the streetcar.
The lady didn’t move. “It does?”
Titan turned back to see her still standing there, mouth agape.
“I don’t mean actually getting sat upon. Not being seen. I’m used to it.”
She peered behind Titan, to the left and then to the right, presumably checking the doors of the station, before stepping back around his feet and taking a seat on the far end of the bench.
“That’s very sad, don’t you think?”
Titan studied her for the first time. Fine blonde wisps framed her youthful face beneath a felted bonnet. The dark coat wasn’t the threadbare one of a laborer nor the expensive cut of the upper class. Concern struck him. What was a middle-class lady doing out alone at dusk?
“I prefer it that way, actually,” he said.
She arched an eyebrow at him, folded her hands on her lap, and glanced over his head to the door again. Following her cue, Titan leaned forward, hoping to see the streetcar materialize, but only carriages and wagons clambered past.
He started a minute later when his seatmate addressed him again. “You don’t strike me as a criminal.”
Titan stared at her, unable to ascertain what had prompted the comment.
“I can’t think why else anyone would want to be unseen.”
Ah. “Privacy,” Titan said. “Peace and quiet.”
At that, her eyebrows reached for her hairline, and she pressed her lips together. “I beg your pardon and apologize once more for sitting on you.” She turned away from him, and the silence grew heavy in the middle of the bench.
Titan frowned. He hadn’t meant to offend her but to answer her question honestly and give reassurance that she needn’t feel unsafe next to him. Surely her own safety was the primary matter on her mind at the moment. It ought to be.
A crowd surged from the station doors, and porters pushed laden carts past the bench to waiting wagons. The lady came to her feet beside Titan, studying each face that passed. He was wrong. Her safety wasn’t on her mind at all.
The streetcar appeared and drew to a halt ten feet from the bench. Titan eyed it, shivering, and glanced at the young lady who was watching the station doors with disappointment etched across her face. Passengers disembarked from the streetcar and dispersed into the streets, and the waiting cluster climbed aboard. Titan looked from the lady to the streetcar and back again, searching his mind for a reason why he remained seated. He thought of his mother’s roast beef and the warm manse parlor as his eyes landed on a pair of seedy-looking bums lounging under the streetlight. When the driver cracked his whip and the horses pulled the streetcar away, Titan still had no explanation for his presence on the bench.
If this woman didn’t care about her own safety on a dark Chicago street, it was no business of his. He wasn’t responsible for the protection of every female in the city.
Except he was. As the son of a minister, the rules of gentlemanly behavior had been instilled too deeply to circumvent. It was the responsibility of upstanding men to consider every female in their vicinity, and he could not in good conscience leave this woman unchaperoned at the dim station with ne’er-do-wells lounging about. Whoever she’d been expecting had obviously not come, yet she sank back onto the bench.
Titan’s stomach rumbled, and he turned up his collar against the cold as time passed. How long would it take for this stubborn woman to admit defeat? She had to know that there were no more passenger trains after the six-fifty.
Titan checked his watch again. Fifteen after seven. He definitely should have taken the streetcar. He would have been home by now, and his dinner would have still been hot. His sister Rebecca would be at the manse with her husband and one of Justin’s famous pies. Luke would have left his job at Western Union by now, picked up his wife Kellie from their cottage, and joined them. Justin and Kellie’s brother Jack was on holiday from seminary and would have arrived with one of the two couples. Titan wasn’t sure which one Jack was staying with this time, but it was usually Kellie, even though Justin had the bigger house.
The only siblings still absent would be Titan’s two married sisters who didn’t live in Chicago anymore, and himself. Maybe they would wonder where he was. Luke would remember that he was attending the lecture at Rush University this afternoon. He should, at least. “Maybe he got caught up in a conversation with the lecturer,” they might say. It made a lot more sense than sitting here in the cold, playing nurserymaid to a stranger.
Titan was pulled from his reverie when the woman stood and gave a little sigh toward the station door. His heart twisted at the way her shoulders drooped as she turned and walked away down the street. Titan gave a glance toward the ne’er-do-wells as he leaped to his feet and tailed her.
Author Bio:
Heather Wood grew up in the Chicago suburbs, loving history, classic literature, writing stories, and Civil War reenacting. After obtaining her bachelor's degree in Bible/Theology from Appalachian Bible College, she settled in Virginia with her husband David. Her early passions fuel her writing today, although she spends most of her days now working to infuse her love for God and good literature into the hearts of her four small children.
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