A Plains Life

Sarah Clark’s family endured the hardship of a wagon train journey to pursue their dream of land ownership in Kansas. The family of four scratches out a hardscrabble life on the windswept plains. Happily expecting another child, Sarah is bereft when the baby is stillborn. When a stagecoach robbery and shoot-out take her husband’s life, Sarah must make life-altering decisions. To keep a deathbed promise to his best friend, Mark Hewett faces possible incarceration and is forced to lie to Sarah whom he has come to love. Can Mark keep his word and still save the family who now relies solely on him? Necessary deception holds the potential for disaster as the family struggles to survive.

After a previous miscarriage, Sarah Hewitt prays for a healthy baby with her new husband Mark, whom she loves and cherishes. Despite past secrets and half-truths Sarah and Mark have a second chance at life as they struggle to turn their dreams into reality. Then unforeseen circumstances threaten their family dynamics and jeopardize their chances for unconditional love. Can Mark hold true to his word to protect a promise to his best friend Samuel, Sarah's first husband, or will the truth about his lies be revealed?

During the perilous years of the Civil War, life-altering events challenge the Hewitt family living in conflict-weary Kansas. Throughout the war, runaway slaves appearing at the farm put the family at constant risk from lawless bounty hunters. The young couple Billy and Elizabeth wonder if the time is right to marry and start a family. Billy and Mark face almost certainty that they will be called upon to fight, leaving behind everything they've worked so hard to establish. As the present looms menacingly over the Hewitt family, the future that held so much promise is now filled with fear and uncertainty. Will courage and love be enough to see them through? Only time will tell.

In the midst of change and shifting attitudes after the Civil War, heightened drama still abounds in the town of Dead Flats. Billy Henry had been married to a town girl, and she broke his heart. Does he now stand a chance to remarry, keep his wife at home, have children, and manage a farm to provide a good life for his family? Lydia Clark longs to use her sewing skills to start a business of her own. Now she's in love. She must choose to follow her heart or pursue her yearning for independence. Focused on the lives ahead of them, will Billy and Lydia escape the ghosts of the past and the weight of family secrets that threaten their future?