Promised to Me

"For I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope." (Jeremiah 29:11)

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Book #4 in the Coming to America Series

When Jakob Hirsch left Germany to make a new and better life for himself in America, he promised Karola Breit he would send for her soon. But eleven years passed before that day arrived. For eleven years Karola watched friends marry and start families and felt her heart breaking, bit by bit. By the time that longed-for letter from Jakob arrived, nothing could have stopped her from boarding the ship that would carry her to a man — and a country — she neither knew nor understood.

Reunited at last, Jakob and Karola discover nothing is as they thought it would be. The young lovers they once were no longer exist. In their place are two strong-willed strangers who cannot seem to agree on anything, who must struggle to overcome years of broken promises and shattered dreams, who wonder what God could possibly have had in mind when He brought them together again.

Two people who must discover that, although God’s plans aren't always clear or easy to understand, they are, in every way, perfect.

Look for the Value Edition ($6.99) available in May 2008

"One of the greatest things about Robin Lee Hatcher's books is that I always receive a blessing when I read one. Her words and stories are spirit-filled and speak to my heart. PROMISED TO ME will capture your spirit of adventure, take you on a journey into love, and bring you a blessing." — Dawn Myers, Writers Unlimited

"PROMISED TO ME is the first Robin Lee Hatcher book I’ve read, and I really enjoyed it. She creates riveting tension and conflict between her characters. Karola is a woman to admire as she endures a devastating betrayal and comes through with grace and compassion. Jakob’s motherless children are sure to capture your heart. Hatcher does a masterful job of creating each scene so it unfolds like a movie in your mind. PROMISED TO ME, book four in the Coming to America series, is an emotionally charged story that is sure to tug at your heart and keep you mesmerized for hours." — The Word on Romance

"Ms. Hatcher has given us a story of love, faith and happiness mixed with pain and loss. You will find yourself crying and laughing and for me finding a peace that I may have missed. The characters are rich and the struggles all too real, even if it is set in the early 1900s of America. PROMISED TO ME is a book that should top your To Be Read pile. This was my first book by Ms. Hatcher but will certainly not be my last." 4 1/2 Hearts — Romance Readers Connection

"No one writes Americana romance better than Robin Lee Hatcher! Endearing characters, well-chosen period details, and a genuine sense of time and place brought PROMISED TO ME fully alive in my heart. I turned the pages with increasing speed, longing for Jakob and Karola to find joy in one another and peace with God. A story to treasure, from happy start to teary finish!" — Liz Curtis Higgs, best-selling author of BOOKENDS

"PROMISED TO ME is an engaging, sweet romance." — Romantic Times Magazine

Prologue
April 1897

It was good that God made Jakob Hirsch the son of a farmer, for he could never have been a sailor. Seasickness had plagued him from the beginning of this voyage.

But at the moment he wasn’t feeling so bad. The steamship was making its way into New York harbor. Today he would feel the good, solid land of America beneath his feet.

Laughter reached his ears, and he glanced across the deck toward three young women standing near the ship’s railing. The unlikely group of friends—as different from one another in appearance as night is from day—had first captured his attention soon after the RMS Teutonic left Southampton, England. Something about their nervous excitement, their sense of adventure, their unspoken hopes and dreams for the future—obvious to anyone who looked at them—defined this trip for Jakob.

The English girl, an elegantly dressed, auburn-haired lady of means, was pretty and shapely. The blonde from Sweden was plain, unusually tall, and much too thin for Jakob’s taste. The Irish girl with the wild mane of black hair—the one with the wedding ring and slightly rounded belly—had an earthy beauty and a spark in her eyes that must spell trouble for her husband, poor fellow.

Not that Jakob had met the woman or her friends. Nor did he want to make their acquaintance. Jakob had a girl of his own back in Germany. Still, watching those three young women had helped dispel some of the boredom of the shipboard journey.

A gust of wind caught Jakob’s cap and nearly swept it away. Just as he caught it, he heard someone exclaim, “There it is!” He surged to his feet and rushed to join the others at the rail as the Statue of Liberty came into view.

He’d made it. He was here. America! Here he would make his way, buy his own land, have a freedom and a hope that a poor farmer, the youngest of five sons, couldn’t have in his homeland. Here he would find his future.

“Amerika,” he whispered. “I have made it, Karola, mein Liebling. Soon you will come, too. I promise.”

Chapter One
Ellis Island, May 1908

“Miss Breit?” The inspector looked at her, bored indifference in his gaze. “Are you traveling alone?”

"Ja,” Karola replied.

“And who will be meeting you?”

This time, Karola answered in English. “I will not be met. I am going by train to Idaho. I am to be married when I arrive there to Mr. Jakob Hirsch. He is a farmer.”

“Do you have proof of those arrangements?”

“Ja.” She removed Jakob’s telegram and the train fare—in American dollars—from her satchel, just as she’d been told she would have to do.

The inspector looked at them, grunted, then marked something on a paper and sent her to the next line.

Helga Wehler was already there. Like Karola, Helga was traveling alone, coming to America to be married. Unlike Karola, Helga was only seventeen and afraid of her own shadow. The girl had attached herself to Karola soon after they’d met in the crowded women’s quarters below deck.

Helga turned around, her eyes wide. “Are you afraid, Fräulein Breit?”

Helga was referring to the next inspection, one every immigrant dreaded above all others. Using a buttonhook, a doctor turned up both eyelids, looking for trachoma. If the disease of the eye was detected, the immigrant would be detained on Ellis Island, then sent back to Europe on the next available ship.

“Nein,” Karola answered. How could she be afraid now that she was finally in America, now that she was finally about to be married to Jakob Hirsch?

Eleven years. Eleven years since she’d promised to marry Jakob. Eleven long years of waiting and wondering and doubting and despairing. She had lost hope, of course, with the passing of time, but now she was here. She was to be Jakob’s wife at last.

After leaving for America, Jakob had written to Karola regularly until the spring of 1901. Then the letters had stopped. Never a reply, no matter how often she’d written to him. By the end of the following year, believing that something terrible must have happened to him—he had to be dead—she’d stopped waiting to hear from him. Only pride had kept her from allowing others to see her broken heart and shattered dreams.

Then, last December, a letter had arrived from America. A letter from Jakob.

She remembered standing in the parlor of her parent’s home above her father’s bakery, holding that letter, her heart racing, her emotions swinging wildly between hope and bitterness, anger and joy, love and hate.

He owned a farm in a place called Idaho, Jakob had written. The soil was rich, and there was a fine house and outbuildings. If she was unmarried, would she consider coming to America to be his wife?

As she’d read his letter, she’d pictured herself, seated with her parents in their small church each Sunday or working with her father in the bakery every day. She’d felt the pitying stares of the young married women of her village. Poor Karola. No one wants her now. Others, she’d known, laughed behind her back. Serves her right for thinking she’s better than everyone else. Going to America. Ha!

Oh, she’d known what they whispered when she was out of hearing.

In those first years after Jakob left, she had bragged to everyone about how rich they were going to be in America, about how much Jakob loved her, about how perfect their new lives would be once they were together again. When other men had tried to court her, she’d rejected them, firmly and plainly—even at times, she supposed, cruelly.

Then Jakob’s letters had stopped arriving, and by the time she’d stopped hoping, most of the suitable young men of Steigerhausen had either married or moved away. The few who remained wanted nothing to do with the baker’s daughter. Who wanted a wife with a head full of impossible dreams and a heart that still longed to see the world beyond the borders of their small village? No one, it had seemed. Not until Helmutt Schmidt. The very idea of being married to him made her shudder.

And so, as Karola had read Jakob’s letter, asking if she would come to America, she had made a quick decision: Ja, she would. She would do anything to get away from the life she’d been leading. Anything.

The first steps of her journey had begun four months later . . .

Copyright 2003 Robin Lee Hatcher
All rights reserved