Until the Day Breaks (California Rising Book 1) Read Online Free

and dressed poorly, trailed the well-dressed ladies. A horn sounded, startling Rachel with the last call to board the steamboat. Tearing herself away from Steven, she moved in behind the red-haired woman and child. Passengers, all men now, surged forward, pushing her out of Steven’s reach. Out of Steven’s life.
    After boarding the steamboat, she edged her way to the railing, searching for Steven where she’d left him on the dock. He wasn’t there and her heart sank, but soon she found him not far off, waving to her from the dock as if in welcome instead of departure. That gentle smile she so dearly loved brightened his face. She waved in return, fresh tears flooding her eyes.
    “Is that your husband?” The little girl, about seven years old, Rachel guessed, stood beside her, gripping the railing. The child’s mother hung back, looking bone-weary, resting on the steamboat’s deck near a pile of coiled rope.
    “Not yet, but someday, I hope.” Rachel blinked hard, her eyes stinging.
    “We’re searching for my father. He sailed for California three years ago. If we don’t find him, Ma fears we’ll starve to death come winter.”
    Rachel tucked a wisp of the little girl’s tangled red hair behind her ear. “Then we will pray you find him.” The girl’s wide, despairing eyes were the hue of a stormy sea.
    “Does God answer your prayers? ’Cause he don’t answer mine.”
    “How do you know he doesn’t answer?” Rachel did her best to keep Steven in view while acknowledging the child at the same time.
    “He don’t bring us more food. Don’t give us a warm place to sleep. We barely get by, and he ain’t brought my pa home. My sister just passed. God never done us any good. Ma had to sell her soul to purchase passage on this here ship for us.”
    Rachel didn’t want to hear the details of a woman’s soul selling. She put her hand on top of the child’s head, trying to stop the flow of heartbreaking information spilling from that rosy little mouth.
    As they steamed across the harbor, a bell ringing over the water from the ship reminded Rachel of bells across the snow. Just last winter, after an astonishing blizzard, she’d accompanied Steven in a horse-drawn sleigh to minister to snowbound parishioners about the countryside. She still thought of it as the finest day of her life, for he’d asked her to marry him that afternoon. Steven said she’d make a wonderful minister’s wife, and he wanted her by his side always and forever. But Mrs. Gains continued to stand in their way.
    Drowning in longing, Rachel waved to him one last time before kneeling beside the child unleashing her life story in spite of Rachel not wanting to hear it. “God is real, and he loves you. He will help you. I am Rachel Tyler. What is your name, young lady?”
    “Molly O’Brian.”
    “Well, Molly O’Brian, you will have a warm place to sleep on the Rainbow .”
    “Ma don’t think so. We’re stuck in steerage with the rats.”
    Rachel swiped her cheeks dry before taking Molly’s little hands in hers. “Well, we must see what we can do to remedy that. God has made us friends for a reason.” She squeezed the little girl’s hands in reassurance.
    It shouldn’t be too hard to tuck Molly and her mother into her stateroom. Paying to improve their meals would also help alleviate their misery. Her father had sent her plenty of coin to complete this six-month journey. She grew excited just thinking about writing to Steven to tell him how she’d rescued these poor Irish immigrants on the voyage.
    “Do you know I am going to California in search of my father as well? It has been many years since we parted. I don’t even remember what he looks like,” she told Molly.
    Molly’s wide eyes widened even more. “Your pa done left you too?”
    “He sure did. He went to make his fortune on that faraway shore, and he did just that. He’s a landowner now in California.”
    “A landowner?” Molly was awestruck. “Only the rich