I got a great surprise today... my author copies of Love Finds You in Deadwood arrived today. This is my first book under pen name Tracey Cross which I will be using for only historicals. This book will be released August first. Here's a sneak peak:
Chapter One
It had simply never occurred to Jane Albright that Tom might be dead. Gracious, if she feared for his life each time he failed to arrive home in a reasonable amount of time, she’d spend every waking minute in an absolute state. After all, the trip to Deadwood took a month and that was only one way. With weather upsets, the swollen North Platte and breakdowns, she never expected to see him within three months of each departure.
So although he was two weeks overdue, she’d hardly given his absence a thought until late last night when Hank came rolling in on the freight wagon with Tom in the back covered from head to toe with his bedroll.
Standing next to her husband’s grave, Jane barely found the grace to speak a Psalm over him. Even as she said a closing prayer, she found the words automatic and insincere and were it not for her son, Danny standing next to her, fidgeting like only a three year old could, she might have foregone the funeral altogether and just told Hank to bury him without paying final respects. But she couldn’t have her son remembering that she hadn’t given his pa a proper burial.
Hank Barnes, Tom’s partner stood respectfully by the grave that he’d tended to himself, his battered hat clutched in calloused hands that had worked much too hard for it to all end this way.
Jane’s amen brought his head up, and, as one, they turned away from the gravesite of the man who had caused such upheaval for them both, leaving them to salvage what they could of the ruins.
“How long before the lender calls in the note?” Jane stared at the grizzled bullwhacker, trying to wrap her head around the fact that her husband had left them with nothing. Less than nothing, he’d left them in debt which was the worst thing he could have done.
Hank cleared his throat and stopped walking when they reached the doorway to the sod house. “Mr. Lloyd has been patient for too long already, Ma’am. He-um—it was due in full three months ago. He never made even one payment.”
A wave of nausea seized Jane’s stomach. Her mind refused to believe that there was nothing to be done. Mama Rose had always said, “Where there’s a will there’s a way.” That might have been the only thing the nasty woman had ever taught Jane, but the lesson had been well learned.
Jane squared her shoulders and tilted her head a little to look Hank in the eye. “We’ll just have to convince him that you and I are not of the same inclinations toward sloth and drink as Tom was. Any reasonable man will be willing to give us a bit more time to gather the payment. How long do you think it might take to catch up?”
Realizing she was doing all the talking and Hank wasn’t holding her gaze, Jane frowned, scrutinizing him. It couldn’t be a good sign that his boots shifted. The forty-year-old man was squirming worse than little three-year-old Danny when he was about to get into trouble. “What aren’t you telling me, Hank? Whatever it is, just come right out with it.”
