Small-town Texas spinsters find love with mail-order grooms!
Though Caroline Wallace can’t have a family, she can still have a purpose. Becoming Simpson Creek’s new schoolmarm helps heal the heartache of losing Pete, her fiancé, to influenza. Then Pete’s brother arrives, trailing a herd of cattle and twin six-year-old girls.
Jack Collier expected Pete and his bride to care for his daughters until he was settled in Montana. But bad weather and worse news strand Jack in Texas until spring. It’s little wonder Caroline grows fond of Abby and Amelia. But could such a refined, warmhearted woman fall for a gruff rancher…before the time comes for him to leave again?
“Where’s my brother?” Jack Collier demanded again. “Why are you wearing black?”
Lord, help me to tell him with compassion, Caroline prayed.
“I’m sorry to tell you this, Mr. Collier, but your brother Peter passed away this last winter—” she paused when she heard his sharp intake of breath “—during an influenza epidemic.”
“Pete’s…dead?” he murmured. “Why didn’t you let me know?”
The last question was flung at her like a fist, but she heard the piercing loss contained in it.
“I did try. But I wasn’t able to get your address from Pete before…before he d-died.”
She grabbed her black-edged handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes.
“What am I going to do now?” Jack Collier wondered aloud.
“I’m sorry you’ve come all this way, only to hear such awful news…. I’m sure Mama and Papa would be glad to put you up until you feel able to return home.”
“You don’t understand,” Jack Collier told her. “I can’t go back.”
Laurie Kingery
makes her home in central Ohio, where she is a “Texan-in-exile.” Formerly writing as Laurie Grant for the Harlequin Historical line and other publishers, she is the author of eighteen previous books and the 1994 winner of a Readers’ Choice Award in the Short Historical category. She has also been nominated for Best First Medieval and Career Achievement in Western Historical Romance by RT Book Reviews. When not writing her historicals, she loves to travel, read, participate on Facebook and Shoutlife and write her blog on www.lauriekingery.com.
The Rancher’s Courtship
Laurie Kingery
MILLS & BOON
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And they said, let us rise up and build. So they strengthened their hands for this good work.
—Nehemiah 2:18
To Stephanie, the teacher in our family, in honor of the teachers who only had one-room schoolhouses to teach in.
To Susan Alverson, who helped me through the rough patches and was always there to listen.
And always, to Tom.
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