Scorched: Four Historical Romance Novellas

By Doreen Milstead

Maggie Saves Three Lives, is a gentle story about love and faith and one lone woman on her Wyoming ranch, left by herself except for some transitory ranch hands, after her husband dies PLUS Native Fear - A woman decides to go out west after becoming widowed, but when she arrives her fiancé is nothing at all like she imagined he would be. His appearance brings back horrid memories of a family tragedy, and she doubts that she can even speak to him, let alone get married PLUS Promised To Another But Falling In Love With The Outlaw Cowboy In Colorado - A woman who is the fiancé of a banker, goes to meet him for the first time at his bank, but is treated rudely by the obnoxious man PLUS Starving For Love & Saved By The Stranger - What if you were losing your sight, had to work or starve, and the job you did was making you go blind? This dilemma faces a starving young woman in Victorian England, and when she is making her way home one evening a stranger tries to grab her purse, which holds a few meager coins.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Sep 9, 2017
• ISBN: 9781387219995

Book preview

Scorched: Four Historical Romance Novellas

Scorched: Four Historical Romance Novellas

By

Doreen Milstead

Copyright 2017 Susan Hart

Partial cover photo copyright: diomedes66 / 123RF Stock Photo

Maggie Saves Three Lives

Synopsis: Maggie Saves Three Lives, is a gentle story about love and faith and one lone woman on her Wyoming ranch, left by herself except for some transitory ranch hands, after her husband dies. There’s a very long period of loneliness before God sends a man and his two sons who are near death after being abandoned by the people on their wagon train traveling the Oregon Trail, to her. What she does later will change four lives, and then many more, forever.

When I gave my hand in marriage, I thought it was forever, and I meant for it to be. As time passed, it was only for a passing moment, a flicker of precious time and then my world came crashing down. Leaving me alone in Wyoming was not part of my husband’s plan, for he had such wonderful plans for us both.

Carl was a man of integrity and true grit. If there was something to be done, he made sure it got done. If there was a barn that burnt down and it belonged to someone else, it got rebuilt. If there were mouths to feed and they lived fifty miles away by horseback, they were fed. Carl came to me as a gift from God and he left me a gift when he said goodbye.

He gave me love when I was blessed with him and he taught me love when he left.

It was a Sunday morning and the sun was already shining through the tree tops when I arose to make an early breakfast. Carl and I had been married for a very short eight months. I loved getting up in the mornings and scurrying around to give him a good start to the day ahead of him.

He would sleep like a baby and then begin sleeping fitfully once he could smell the coffee on the stove. You couldn’t sneak it past his senses, even asleep and it was so enjoyable to watch him wake to the aroma.

Nothing was different about that day, as far as I knew he would wake up, come in and sneak up on me, putting his arms around me and holding me near his still warm body. So, I carried on in the kitchen, even tidying up a bit more than usual because he had not grabbed me yet.

After I had set his breakfast on the table and cleaned all I could clean, I still did not feel his arms around me, so I decided I would peek in to see what was taking him longer that morning. To my horror when I got in the bedroom, he was spread across the bed lying on his stomach.

I knew immediately that something dreadful was wrong because he does not sleep on his stomach. I ran to his side and at once began screaming his name and I rolled him over, and it was plain to see that my dear beloved husband had died since I had gotten up that morning.

I was devastated and after Doc Graham made a visit and looked Carl over, he said that he believed Carl must have had a heart attack, but he was so young and I found that so hard to believe.

He was gone and my life was over.

I did not even want to live.

Life did go on and through many struggles, I was able to keep our ranch going and it prospered as well as plummeted at other times. Out here, anything goes and you might as well be prepared for it when it does.

I hired hands on and off and as cowboys are, they come and go, just like the wind. They usually up and leave on you when you least expect it and when you need them the most. They wait for a big paycheck and then they cut and run.

There were times I did not know if I was going to make it through the winter either because the hands left me or I could not get the harvest in myself, or because the crops failed. The Lord provides in many ways and He always comes through for those who trust Him.

Years down the road, a widowed man and his two boys came stumbling up the dirt path that leads to my ranch and they have been here with me ever since. I never thought I would find myself falling in love again, but the Lord provides in that too.

I got two wonderful sons with the deal too. This story will focus on my life after I met this threesome and will also share with you the stories they shared with me about their adventure as they traveled the Oregon Trail.

That is how they ended up with me in Wyoming.

They were on their way to Oregon along with a wagon train and as they traveled along they had problems, one after another, until finally they were left by the rest of the train, without a wagon and not much food and water to even survive.

By the time they arrived at my house, they were dehydrated and nearly starved to death. They’d met storms of all kinds, Indians, rough rustlers, dangerous rivers and anything else you might find out on the plains.

After arriving here, then we encountered some more. His sons were stubborn and very strong willed. They loved their mother and at first, for quite some time, they wanted nothing to do with me. Time passed and they began to finally warm up to me, but it was not easy and we had many trials and near tragic events before they could fully accept me.

This story will be told by my husband Burl and me. I cannot share with you the things I do not know, so he will tell you about his experiences on the trail and I will share with you, our life after the trail.

Wyoming to me, ever since my first husband, Carl died, was big and lonely and I thought it would only get bigger as time went on, and it did. It meant long sunsets stretching across the Wyoming skies with no one to walk with under them.

It meant weeping willows crying in the trees and no one to express how they longed to hear them. It meant dusty days and rainy nights that I had to go at them alone. It meant a life of loneliness and missing Carl.

As time went on, through the years after he passed, I began feeling some relief. I still missed him very much, but the pain eased upon my heart. I would go and sit at his resting place and not say too much and yet say enough and it began to satisfy the void in my life.

I also had the hands around part of the time, when they would stay. They were always young men and they had places to go and pasture to roam, so I found myself never getting too connected to any of them.

There were times I thought the silence would kill me around here, hearing no belly laughter from their ranch hand house they lived in. I got to where I did not even want to cook anymore since there was no one to cook for.

The day would always come, and the night would always fall, so I had to find a way to continue on, even in the silence. I had the trees that the wind would whistle through and the birds that chirped around at me and the small creatures that would always end up on my porch somehow.

So, it wasn’t all bad and I fell in love with the prairies more every day. I myself considered at times to hit the Oregon Trail because it sounded so exciting, but I hated to leave my home.

Wyoming is as beautiful as Oregon, maybe even more so; and I could not give up the place where Carl and I were married and settled. So, when Burl and the boys came practically crawling up my road, it was wonderful to see their faces.

Once they arrived it didn’t take too long to know that I would have some hands at least, for some time. They came with nothing but the clothes on their back, so I knew they would need to stay for some time to rebuild their lives.

I could use their company, more than anything.

My sons and I had been traveling along with many others who wanted to seek a better life, better opportunity, and the travel was not easy. If you didn’t prepare for it, you simply didn’t make it. My sons and I were as prepared as the next wise person on the trail, but as it went; our luck had run out by the time we reached Wyoming. My sons, Cord and Hank were my priority and with no help from the crew we were traveling with, we would not have survived if I had not made the decision to stop in Wyoming.

We had been losing luck along the way and it finally ran out.

The train we joined had few Christian travelers and the ones we thought were, buckled up under pressure from the drifters who were not. As we watched the last wagon pull away, leaving us totally stranded with no wagon, not much food and even less water, I sent up a prayer quickly for them, so that I would not be tempted to seek revenge or to wish anything unfortunate upon them.

That’s the way it is with true faith, when you feel yourself slipping, you can always be caught by the mighty hand upstairs, if you wish to be. I did not want to allow myself to have harsh feelings towards those who had no compassion upon us, so I immediately asked God for a better heart.

We were hurting, and we were hurting bad. There was nothing I could do about it, except to keep moving, even if it was on foot. My boys should never have had to go through such a hard time, but I believe today it made them who they are and their faith is stronger because of it.

The Lord works in ways that we are not able to see taking place and He brought my boys and me to a place we would not have come to, without His hand in it. To introduce my dear Maggie, I would not be able to put into words what kind of woman she truly was.

She took my boys and me when an entire train threw us away, and she took us into her home, willing to trust in the Lord to guide us all into the plan He had made. By the time my boys and I had arrived at that long dusty road that led to Maggie’s ranch, we had all but given up on ourselves and God.

We had walked with the same boots and by the end of the road, the soles had fallen off of them, our clothes were worn nearly through and our spirits matched our appearance. My boys had stronger faith than I had left by the time we looked into Maggie’s face.

I think the boys somehow knew that she would have the heart that she did. I did not even care by that time to get my hopes up and if she rejected us and told us to leave, I would have just lain down and died in her yard. It really did not matter to me by that time.

She took one look at my boys and she opened the door wide to her log home and she was quick to build the most magnificent meal we had seen in nine months. She fixed up some fresh fried chicken, along with dumplings, biscuits and corn left on their ears, and we sat and ate like we hadn’t eaten days -- which we hadn’t. Our food ran out long before we arrived at Maggie’s place.

She offered warm beds, plenty of food and fresh clean water drawn from a well and then she offered me a chance of a lifetime; a job. I was so appreciative that I teared up and that turned into a grown man sobbing. My boys ducked their heads and I thought I shamed them until I looked closer and saw their own tears. Maggie was a three-life saver.

Our bodies were on the verge of going home to sweet Jesus and we were prepared to lie down. She opened her heart to my boys first and then much later, to me as well. Maggie had lost her first