The Cottonwood Series
Doc spent the night in the livery with a strange woman. Not the best rumor to start the morning’s gossip.
All Lydia Walcott wanted was a warm shelter after a cold escape from an impending arranged marriage, a broken arm and a wounded spirit. When she curled up in an empty livery stall, she dreamed of seeking a new life with a job, a place to live, friends, and a future. She thought she was alone. Loved and respected, Dr. Sterling Graham braved the ice covered roads to help the people of Cottonwood. His return trip left him exhausted and he barely got his horse settled before he curled up in the next stall. He thought he was alone. The unwelcome solution to the unfortunate predicament of waking up together was for Lydia and Sterling to get married. His reputation and career, as well as her hope for a new life, are otherwise put in jeopardy. Can they learn to trust each other enough to mesh their lives into a successful marriage which honors God? Or will pride, epidemic, and injury make coping seem impossible? Through the dangerous Iowa winter, their reputations are the least of their worries. |
He’s a stuck up English Lord. She’s trying to get out from under her mother’s domineering ways.
In her own apartment, Maggie revels in her independence and finally blossoms into the woman she feels God wants her to be. She doesn't want any sort of entanglement with a man. Forced by his father to leave England, Sinjon arrives to find he’s working as a stable hand. The only good thing about the town is the beautiful woman with the golden hair he meets the first day. Sinjon is delighted when he’s hired to teach her to drive a buggy. Maggie’s not thrilled. Maggie’s mother would love nothing more than to see them married. Maggie worries if their faiths are too different to get what her heart desires. Sinjon wants what Sinjon wants and nothing is going to stand in his way. When all options seem wrong, can they learn to trust God and see that he will make a way? Even when it seems impossible? |
‘The Lord giveth and Lord taketh away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord.’ The verse has special meaning to Drew Richards and Katie Reed. Both are reeling from the worst loss they have ever known. Drew lost his wife, in childbirth. Katie, both her husband and infant son in a fire.
To save Drew’s newborn daughter, he has to ask Katie to do the unthinkable; nurse his daughter knowing each time will be like an arrow to her soul. Katie knows the pain of losing both spouse and child at the same time. She will do anything to keep Drew from experiencing that same pain. Both are sure they will never love again. What starts as an arrangement to care for Drew’s children becomes a marriage of convenience. Can love grow from the giving of themselves for each other? Will a rash of petty thefts and an interfering know-it-all cause more problems than they can overcome? Will they live their lives in a loveless marriage? |
Deputy U.S. Marshal Timothy Dillion has had a terrible two years. First one, then a second love dies of a bullet wound in his arms. He is broken and afraid to love again for fear of causing another woman to die. Imagine his surprise when traveling with Marshal Nathan Ryder, aka: The Preacher, he ends up in Cottonwood chasing an outlaw from his past. One who caused the death of his first love. Add to that he's tasked with protecting Nell Shaw, the towns only nurse and a beautiful woman in her own right, from Dales attacks.
Nell hasn't felt safe with a man since the night she ran away from her fathers advances. She has been living with Aggie Cuttler, Nathan's aunt, since she was fifteen. Now in the course of a few months she is kidnapped by Diamond Dale, forced to let the young and handsome deputy be her constant shadow, and had to deal with the return of her fatally ill father. She is drawn to Tim but doesn't want to belong to any man. Can these two overcome their separate pasts to find happiness with each other? Can Nathan Ryder and his wife find the healing they need from the betrayal the suffered in Redemption? Will Aggie finally get to take her knife to Leonard Shaw like she wanted to when he came to claim Nell the first time? Or is there healing in the Redeeming Love of Christ? |