Redemption. Carolyn Davidson
“Get your damn foot out of my door.”
This time it was a subdued roar, delivered from a twisted face of anger. “Do I have to call the sheriff to toss you out on your fanny?” He looked her up and down. “Though unless my eyes deceive me, it might take two husky men to do the job.”
Alicia felt the flush climb her cheeks. It was an insult, delivered honestly—but an insult, nevertheless. And as the town’s schoolteacher, she had until this moment been accorded the courtesy due to her position. She gritted her teeth. That her weight was, and always had been, a problem was neither here nor there. But this blatant intention to offend her had touched a sore spot, one she guarded closely.
“Two husky men?” Her brow jerked upward. “More like three,” she answered crisply, “unless the blacksmith is one of them.”
Acclaim for Carolyn Davidson’s recent titles
The Marriage Agreement
“Davidson uses her considerable skills
to fashion a plausible, first-class
marriage-of-convenience romance.”
—Romantic Times BOOKclub
Colorado Courtship
“Davidson deftly mixes courtship
and a marriage of conveniece with the intrigue
of gold hunting, robbery and murder.”
—Romantic Times BOOKclub
Texas Gold
“Davidson delivers a story
fraught with sexual tension.”
—Romantic Times BOOKclub
A Marriage by Chance
“This deftly written novel about
loss and recovery is a skillful handling
of the traditional Western, with the
added elements of family conflict
and a moving love story.”
—Romantic Times BOOKclub
The Tender Stranger
“Davidson wonderfully captures gentleness
in the midst of heart-wrenching challenges,
portraying the extraordinary possibilities
that exist within ordinary marital love.”
—Publishers Weekly
Redemption
Carolyn Davidson
Also by Carolyn Davidson
†Big Sky Rancher
Texas Lawman
One Starry Christmas
“Stormwalker’s Woman”
The Marriage Agreement
††Colorado Courtship
Texas Gold
Tempting a Texan
The Texan
A Marriage by Chance
†A Convenient Wife
The Seduction of Shay Devereaux
Maggie’s Beau
One Christmas Wish
“Wish Upon a Star”
*Tanner Stakes His Claim
*The Bachelor Tax
The Midwife
The Tender Stranger
The Wedding Promise
Runaway
The Forever Man
Loving Katherine
Gerrity’s Bride
This story is dedicated to all those
wonderful readers who took time to write me after they’d read The Wedding Promise. And to those who asked why I hadn’t given Jake, a strong secondary character, a book of his own. I agreed with them, and found myself thinking often of Jake and wondering what had happened to him. This is it, ladies. Jake’s story, which in my humble opinion is the best story I’ve ever written.
My dedication would not be complete
without mentioning my manager, the wonderful Mr. Ed, who is my other half, my inspiration and my love.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
Green Rapids, Kansas—Summer 1877
THE GRAVE GAPED, an obscene rectangle wherein lay a simple coffin. Lorena McPherson, wife of Jacob, mother of Jason, lay beneath the scattering of flowers the mourning family and townsfolk had dropped into