The Voice That Called Her Home

Eleanor Hayes has never once needed real courage in her whole sheltered life - until the night she steps off a train in the wrong place, in the wrong dark, in a country she's never seen, and finds herself entirely alone beside a desert water tank with nothing but coyotes for company. She is rescued by a stranger the rough men of a nearby cattle camp simply call "the Kid" - a young man of obvious education and equally obvious secrets, three years deep into running from whatever mistake sent him fleeing west in disgrace.

What begins as one desperate night becomes, over the course of a school term in the rugged little town of Sundown, Arizona, something neither of them expected: a friendship built on hymns sung around a bunkhouse fire, a shared faith tested by a smooth-talking minister who denies the very Christ he's ordained to preach, and a slow, steady courage that turns a runaway into a man willing, at last, to stop running.

But not everyone in Sundown wants to see Colt Ransome make good. A jealous, motherless girl's reckless spite sets a trap that leaves Eleanor stranded, injured, and utterly alone in some of the most unforgiving country in the territory - and it will take everything Colt has learned about faith, patience, and the voice that first called him home to find her before the desert claims what neither of them is willing to lose.

Set against the sweeping beauty of the Southwest and woven through with Scripture, prayer, and old-fashioned hymns, The Voice That Called Her Home is a story about the God who speaks quietly behind us on every uncertain road - and never once stops calling, however far we've wandered, until we finally learn to listen.