Harmonica Joe’s Reluctant Bride
By Sarah McNeal
Available at Western Trail Blazer Novels
http://westerntrailblazer.yolasite.com/online-store.php
A haunted house, a trunk and a date with destiny.
Blurb:
Joseph Wilding left his prosperous Virginia ranch and his grieving father to live in obscurity and guilt over his brother’s death until he marries Lola instead of Callie McGraw, the woman he abhors but whose life he was attempting to save.
Lola discovers a warp in time in an old trunk when she falls into 1882. She finds herself married to Joe, a stranger shadowed by secrets. Mistaken for Callie McGraw, a thief and a woman of ill repute, Lola finds her life is threatened by a scoundrel who believes she stole his money and only Joe stands between her and death.
With danger threatening all around and secrets keeping them apart, can Joe and Lola find their destiny together or will time and circumstance forever divide them?
Excerpt:
“You ever touch my wife again I’ll cripple you in a place that will make you sing soprano, Weston.” He nudged Lola toward the door and out onto the plank sidewalk. Then he stopped, letting her go abruptly. Peering down into her eyes, his own an intense coffee brown his expression turned stern. “Well, Lola, are you through playing games?” He asked with emphasis on her name as if he doubted its authenticity. “I don’t have time for your shenanigans, so make up your mind. You can either come on home with me where I can protect you or you can go on your way and take your chances on your own.”
What should she do? Without knowing where she might go or how to get there, the choices did not seem that good. “What’s to say you won’t just use and abuse me the same way that disgusting man in there would have? You might be planning on taking me off somewhere to rape me and maybe even murder me.”
Joe laughed. “If I wanted to kill you I’ve had several chances to do that all ready. As much as it might bring me some satisfaction to murder you, I don’t hate you quite that much. As for raping you, I’d sooner roll down a mountain side in a bale of barbed wire than try to get betwixt your legs, lady.”
