Part of Series
Edmond Joseph “Eddie Joe” Hampton, foreman for the Jacobson Ranch in Monarch Bend, had his own reasons for encouraging his boss to marry and start a family. Once he signed up with the Colorado Bridal Agency while Lizett Millard was in Jubilee Springs on Independence Day, July 4th, he figured it will be easier to persuade his boss to allow him to build a separate house and live as a married foreman on the ranch if the man is enjoying his own wedded bliss. As wily as Eddie Joe can be, he has to work hard to stay ahead of his boss who has shown no interest in marriage. He knows he can pull it off—as long as his plot isn’t discovered too soon. Etta Crabtree, an impoverished young widow of an abusive first husband, cannot stay at her widowed mother’s home. She has been corresponding with Eddie Joe, and arrives in Jubilee Springs with other brides intended for the town’s miners. The miners claim they have priority on all brides coming to Jubilee Springs until all ten men who signed up for brides and mining company housing are married. Who will win Etta Crabtree’s hand in marriage, the cowboy or one of the miners?
Author
Zina Abbott is the pen name used by Robyn Echols for her historical novels. Her novel, Family Secrets, was published by Fire Star Press in October 2014 and her novelette, A Christmas Promise, was published by Prairie Rose Publications in November 2014. The first two novellas in the Eastern Sierra Brides 1884 series, Big Meadows Valentine and A Resurrected Heart, are now available. The author currently lives with her husband in California near the “Gateway to Yosemite.” She enjoys family history and any kind of history. When she is not piecing together novel plots, she pieces together quilt blocks.
