Sweet Spouse: Carson Valley, #7

By Eliza Ester

Not everything is white lace and perfect smiles in this engaging mail order bride installment.
 

Cyrus Cook suffered love and loss two years ago when his wife tragically passed away. His neighbors rallied around him and his two sons, he now feels that he is prepared to find a new beloved to have and hold for the rest of his days.
 

Happiness can begin when you lose your past.
 

Ellis Duncan is a young woman with heavy burdens on her shoulders. With her parents gone, inheritance is stolen, and her younger sister, Rox, to look after – she must rethink her previous vice against being married.
 

Grief does not keep hunger – or the wolves – from the door.
 

With her reputation in her hometown in tatters, Ellis approaches the mail order bride agency. As Ellis and Rox travel to Carson Valley to meet Cyrus and his sons – it quickly becomes a clash of households that threaten to slash any chance of matrimonial bliss. When Rox runs away during a violent storm, all seems lost before it has begun.
 

This clean western romance series can be read in about an hour. It is perfect for those moments when you are waiting at an appointment or want to enjoy a quick read.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Majestic Owl Publishing LLC
• Release date: Jan 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781393645696

Book preview

ONE

Ellis

Reverend Shreve was a kind man. He looked exactly the way he sounded when Ellis had started communicating with him. He was on the older side, with white hair and a wrinkled face that proved he spent a lot of time smiling.

He wore his black habit even though it was a weekday, and from the moment he met Ellis and Rox at the hotel, Ellis felt she could trust him.

The journey from Baltimore to Carson Valley had been long and tedious and Ellis was relieved they had finally arrived. The town was beautiful. It lay at the foot of the mountains, just above a valley, and it was surrounded by breathtaking nature. The buildings in town were all clustered together, with ranches and farms and homes fanning out from the town center.

Thank you for collecting us, Reverend, Ellis said as he drove them out of the town on a cart that he’d borrowed from the deputy sheriff, Edward Warner. Edward and his wife, Katrina, would join them a bit later to be witnesses for their marriage and to collect their cart.

It’s my pleasure, Miss Duncan, he said.

Please, call me Ellis, she answered. She wouldn’t be Miss Duncan for much longer—she was to be married to Cyrus Cook before the day was out—and she wanted to make friends around town. Where better to start than with the reverend?

Cyrus will be glad to see you, the reverend said. The man has needed a woman in his life again.

Ellis only nodded. She knew that Cyrus had been married before. His wife had passed away two years before and he needed a woman to help him with the children and the farm house, and, of course, for companionship.

How had Ellis become a second wife and a mother overnight? She had grown up in Baltimore with her little sister, Rox. When their parents had passed away, Ellis had taken care of Rox. At twenty-four, Ellis felt she was too young and inexperienced to parent a nine-year-old, but where else would her sister have gone? To make matters worse, Uncle Morris, their father’s brother, had taken all the money and left Ellis with no way to take care of herself and her sister.

If she could have found a man in Baltimore to marry it would have made things easier for them. They could have stayed in Baltimore and carried on the life of luxury that they were accustomed to. But before her parents died, Ellis, being an independent sort, had made such a show of not getting married that she was hardly a prospect. As far as she could see, the only way for Ellis to take care of their situation was to sign up with the mail order bride agency.

And here she was, in Carson Valley, about to start life as a farmer’s wife, just minutes away from meeting the man she was to spend the rest of her life with.

Ellis glanced at Rox. The child had barely spoken two words since they’d left Baltimore. She was upset that they’d had to leave, and Ellis didn’t blame her. It was bad enough to lose her parents; now the young girl was traveling across the country against her will, about to start a brand new life in a strange place where she knew no one. If Ellis could have done something to change their fate, she would have, but this was her last option.

How are you feeling, sweetheart? she asked.

Rox looked up at her with gray eyes that held so much sorrow it made Ellis’s heart ache. Rox had carried that