Cowboy Romance: A Ghost Town Cowboy Love Affair (The Cooper & Elizabeth Mitchell Trilogy - book 1)

By Nina Moon

Cowboy Romance: A Ghost Town Cowboy Love Affair (cowboy romance, cowboy love, cowboy love stories, romance with cowboys, romance western, ghost romance, wild west romance, paranormal cowboy)

Elizabeth is an independent writer, who is traveling to the heart of the wild west desert, for the purpose of conducting historical research, as well as some paranormal investigations, in the town of Tombstone, Arizona. Her intentions also include, compiling first hand accounts of stories, legends and tales, from the local residents of Tombstone, for her upcoming book project.

From her very first day, in the town often referred to as, 'too tough to die', Elizabeth experiences profound paranormal activity, complete, with a ghostly apparition that appears to be following her, during her nightly investigations. Almost overwhelmed, by all the strange happenings that are occurring all around her, Elizabeth is glad to make the acquaintance of an old cowboy by the name of Boyd Adams, who owns a small saloon in town, and, whom she quickly befriends.

While old Boyd's friendship, helps to keep Elizabeth grounded, while she explores the mysterious desert town, another cowboy makes his acquaintance to Elizabeth, that turns her world completely upside down.

While photographing, some of the buildings along Tombstone's legendary Allen Street, a mysterious, and handsome cowboy, by the name of Cooper Mitchell, introduces himself to Elizabeth, graciously offering his services as a local guide, to assist in her research. While initially guarded, Elizabeth is too overcome by her intense attraction to this handsome cowboy, and, he soon becomes her constant companion during the remainder of her stay in Tombstone. With her focus on her research, Elizabeth is quite unprepared, to find herself suddenly wrapped up in a passionate cowboy romance, of her own.

Elizabeth's and Cooper's attraction and feelings for one another, develop quickly, and intensely. As Elizabeth's stay in town, rapidly comes to an end, she finds herself contemplating a possible future with her cowboy love. However, with less than 48 hours left, before she is to leave Tombstone, a flood of events and revelations, unearth Elizabeth's true connection to the wild west town, she came to research. As unprepared as she was, for her own wild west romance, Elizabeth is even more unprepared, when the paranormal elements of her cowboy love affair, simultaneously, awaken and break her heart.

Chapter 1: Destination - Tombstone, Arizona
Chapter 2: A Spirit Welcome
Chapter 3: Tales from an Old Timer
Chapter 4: Saloon 'Reel'
Chapter 5: Help from a Handsome Cowboy
Chapter 6: An Unexpected Connection
Chapter 7: Love Shared - Words Unspoken
Chapter 8: The True Connection to Tombstone
Epilogue

(cowboy romance, cowboy love, cowboy love stories, romance with cowboys, romance western, ghost romance, wild west romance, paranormal cowboy)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nina Moon
• Release date: Apr 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301962075

Nina Moon

Nina Moon has been a ghost writer for years, specializing in the short story romance genre. Nina now takes her talent for melding her favorite personal subject matters of paranormal, time travel, historical reference, mystery and suspense, along with her favorite writing genre of romance, to create her very own collection of literary works. Nina is a Chicago native who studied theater and creative writing, and enjoys transforming her creative prose into engaging short stories, novellas and book series, that will open both the hearts and minds of her readers. Follow Nina Moon on Pinterest at: http://www.pinterest.com/authorninamoon

Book preview

Cowboy Romance:

A Ghost Town Cowboy Love Affair

Nina Moon

~~~

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2013 Nina Moon

Cover and internal design © Nina Moon

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems – except in the case of brief quotations in articles or reviews - without permission in writing from its author-publisher, Nina Moon.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Disclaimer:

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents, are either the products of the author’s imagination, or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual places and events, is purely coincidental.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Destination – Tombstone, Arizona

Chapter 2 A Spirit Welcome

Chapter 3 Tales from an Old Timer

Chapter 4 Saloon ‘Reel’

Chapter 5 Help from a Handsome Cowboy

Chapter 6 An Unexpected Connection

Chapter 7 Love Shared-Words Unspoken

Chapter 8 The True Connection to Tombstone

Epilogue

Available Books by Author

Chapter 1

Destination – Tombstone, Arizona

Elizabeth tapped her fingers on the steering wheel of her car, as she sang along mindlessly to whatever song she could tune in on the radio, while cruising along the dusty Arizona roadways towards her destination. Stretching back in her seat, Elizabeth brushed aside a loose strand of blonde hair from her face, feeling hot, tired and parched. Despite the car’s air conditioning being on maximum output, the extreme Arizona heat had sapped her strength during the marathon journey, and Elizabeth decided that another rest break was called for. Pulling over to the side of the road, she cut off the engine, and reached into the cooler situated on the car’s passenger side floor, and grabbed another bottle of cold water. After drinking back half of the chilled contents, Elizabeth opened her car door and stepped out onto the dusty road to stretch her cramped legs, before heading off for the final stage of her journey.

As she walked along the side of the road, shaking and stretching out her legs, Elizabeth surveyed the scenery around her. Directly in front of her, the dusty road stretched on endlessly and disappeared into the horizon, almost with a feel of desolation pervading it. The surrounding expanse on either side of the road was covered by various species of cacti, patches of dry vegetation and undergrowth - majestic rocks and mountains rising imposingly, in the not too distant background.

Sitting on a large rock along the side of the road, Elizabeth sipped at the remaining contents of her water bottle. As she sat, she reflected on the events that had led her on this journey, including her current choice of destination. Her passion for writing, and equally for all things paranormal, had taken her on many research excursions, yet, this particular investigation was especially thrilling for Elizabeth. Through some tenacious inquiry and networking, she had managed to secure a two week stay in the sparsely populated ghost town, Tombstone, Arizona. The primary caretakers of the town had granted her permission to stay in one of the empty boarding rooms, located above an abandoned general store in town which the couple said, would be a perfect location for Elizabeth to conduct her research. Elizabeth was indeed thankful for the lucky break, for her usual investigative excursions had never before allowed her to take up temporary residence in the actual places that she was researching.

Elizabeth had grown up in a small town in Oregon, which is where she still currently lived, alone, and making a successful living as a writer. Possessing a friendly outgoing nature, she could be described as the girl next door type, naturally attractive, and extremely proud of her high work ethic and adventurous free spirit. Ever since she was a small child, everything paranormal had held a strange fascination for Elizabeth, and for whatever reason, ghost towns in particular were especially intriguing to her.

It was always strangely enticing for Elizabeth to visit these once thriving towns, mostly empty, derelict, and often quite eerie. The energies of the departed souls, who once lived in these towns, always felt palpable to her consciousness. And, it was as if these unseen souls were excited for Elizabeth’s presence in their small, often forgotten community, and eager to communicate their history to her. In Elizabeth’s research and travels to experience these locations, it was easy for her to see why people often referred to ghost towns as haunted. Elizabeth took notice that there were a couple things that every ghost town had in common. First, was that there is always this hard-to-explain, living-like quality, that permeates the air in these towns. Secondly, no matter the location, every ghost town feels like it is trapped in some kind of dimensional time loop, and when you are there, you no longer feel like you are experiencing time in the present. Elizabeth has experienced both of these phenomenons enough to be convinced that even though most ghost towns may be presently void of physical inhabitants, they are certainly not void of the spirits of the inhabitants who had once lived and worked in these locations.

Elizabeth craved the adventure of walking along the deserted streets of ghost towns, most of which, were once thronged with a bustling community. She also enjoyed wandering through the long forgotten buildings, left vacant and abandoned, in various states of disrepair. Elizabeth was anxiously looking forward to some thrilling encounters once she reached her destination of Tombstone, Arizona, with the spirits of the unseen and other paranormal activity. Both of which, were purported to be ever present in the location nicknamed, The Town Too Tough to Die. Elizabeth had already conducted extensive background research on Tombstone, and had chosen this as her next destination carefully. According to locals, tourists and paranormal investigation groups, Tombstone is said to be rife with eerie occurrences and ghostly figures.

This probably wasn’t surprising, given the amount of carousing, mining, gambling, gunfights and, of course, death, that took place in the small Wild West town during the height of its boom days in the late 1800’s. However, as happens with most ghost towns, times change, people move on to better pastures, and many of Tombstone’s buildings were left behind to stand on their own, with nothing but relics and memories locked