DREAMERS ARE BORN NOT MADE Sleeping with men for money was not something Leticia Murphy had planned on doing when she grew up, but then, neither had she planned on being orphaned at twelve, or winding up in a godforsaken place in the Kansas Territories like Lizard Flats. But here she was, like most of the other lost souls who'd come West, looking for something better, and in her case, wishing for a second chance. She knew the odds were against her, but it didn’t stop her from yearning. There was a ritual from her childhood that she performed each evening as the sun was going down. She would step out onto the balcony off her bedroom above the saloon, lift her face to the heavens to search for the Evening Star, then stand quietly in the growing shadows and listen for the call of the whippoorwill. It came from a memory of her mother who had died when she was ten. Always, she was sitting in her mother’s lap outside their clapboard house watching night fall across the land. They would sit on the front step with their bare feet planted firmly in the still warm dirt while enjoying the first cool breezes of evening. As they sat, they would search for the first star and wait for the call of the whippoorwill. Her mother had told her the bird was searching for its mate, but Letty had yet to meet a man who was worth the call. However, the memory was one of the few good ones she had left. Two years after her mother's untimely death, her father was killed by a Comanche hunting party. Letty survived by hiding in a hollowed out badger hole. That was the last time fate showed her any kindness. At twenty-seven, she was well past the marrying age and nearly too used up to care. Yet she didn't stop wishing, and she didn't stop dreaming about a different sort of life. Then one day, something happened in Lizard Flats that had never happened before. Word began to spread throughout the area that a real preacher from back East was coming to perform a wedding. The news set off a whole series of unforeseen events. Caught up in the excitement of the occasion, Letty couldn’t help but think that a change was coming for her, too.

The lantern light shed a pitiful beam through the dark as Letty rounded the side of the building. She held it high above her head in hopes of lighting a broader area, and followed her nose to the outhouse. The door was hanging on one hinge and she thought she caught a flash of something furry scurrying out the door, as she went in, but she couldn't be bothered. She needed to pee and there wasn't any kind of creeping denizen that could be worse than some of the men that she'd bedded. What did slow her down was the realization that if she took the lantern into the outhouse, her every action would be backlit for the world to see. Reluctantly, she set it down a few feet from the door, gritted her teeth, and stepped inside into the dark. Between the scent, the heat, and the pressure on her bladder, she was about to pass out. The smell emanating from the dark hole was only a degree or so worse than the inside of that stagecoach had been, but she'd only been a proper lady less than a year, and this was no time to become delicate. She hitched her skirts up around her waist, pulled down her drawers, and aimed toward what she hoped was the hole in the seat. About the time her water started to flow, she heard a snort, then a snuffle. To her horror, there was a thump and then the little shed started to sway. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to stop what she'd started, but there are certain things that, once begun, are almost impossible to stop - one being the emptying of a very full bladder. In the middle of her panic, the snorting stopped and the outhouse settled. She shifted her position just enough to peer out, but all she could see was darkness. Relaxing, she continued her business with an easier mind until the hole over which she was bending suddenly shifted out from under her. She heard pee hit the floor at the same time the shed started to lean. Instinctively, she dropped her skirt and slapped her hands against the opposite wall, putting all her weight against the rough, hand-hewn wood in an effort to settle it back, trying to ignore the fact that she'd just peed in her shoe. As she did, the tile of the outhouse stopped, rocked once, and then started to sway back and forth on the uneven foundation. "Lord have mercy," Letty cried, and was reaching for the door when something hit the back wall with a thud. Even as she was falling, she began to scream. She'd heard of being shit-faced, but never thought it would happen to her.

Once a frontier saloon girl, Leticia Murphy Potter is now happily married, and her husband, Eulis, couldn't be more overjoyed to call her his wife. The happy couple have become upstanding citizens of Denver City, and have just begun to build a home there together. But Letty's trials and tribulations aren't over, and trouble is brewing just over the horizon. Just when she believes her life couldn't possibly get better, it begins to get worse. Soon Letty and Eulis must work together to overcome new threats—both to their well-being and to their relationship. The third in Sharon Sala's best-selling Whippoorwill trilogy, The Hen House continues the breathtaking saga of Letty and Eulis, with shocking twists in the tale that will leave you wanting more. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Sharon Sala is a member of Romance Writers of America, as well as a member of Oklahoma RWA. She has 94 plus books in print, published in five different genres—Romance, Young Adult, Western, Fiction, and Women's Fiction. First published in 1991, she's an eight-time RITA finalist, winner of the Janet Dailey Award, four-time Career Achievement winner from RT Magazine, five-time winner of the National Reader's Choice Award, and five-time winner of the Colorado Romance Writer's Award of Excellence, as well as Bookseller's Best Award. In 2011 she was named RWA's recipient of the Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award. Her books are New York Times, USA Today, and Publisher's Weekly best-sellers. Writing changed her life, her world, and her fate. ABOUT THE SERIES A best-selling series by renowned romance author Sharon Sala, the Whippoorwill trilogy tells the story of frontier saloon girl Leticia Murphy. Lettie always dreamed of a life of love and family, but when she was orphaned at the age of twelve, she had to do whatever it took to survive. Now, she's the only remaining saloon girl in the washed-up town of Lizard Flats, in the Kansas Territories. Nothing much changes in Lizard Flats, until a stranger rolls into town. A series of unfortunate and hilarious events results in Lettie leaving town in the company of Eulis Potter, the town drunk and saloon handyman. But once away from the shadow of Lizard Flats, Lettie discovers hidden depths in Eulis, and finds herself much closer to her dreams of love than she ever could have realized.