The Bachelor's Bride (The Thompsons of Locust Street #1) - Holly Bush Page 0,85
she said when he began to lever himself off of her. She liked the feel of him, spent, sweat-glistened, and totally relaxed on her, and the sounds of his harsh breathing quieting. After a few minutes, he moved off of her, pulling her against his side.
A warm breeze blew through the curtains, and she rested her head on his shoulder. There was peace in his arms. Peace and safety. And love. She was his for all time.
“You are mine,” she whispered against his chest.
His hand tightened on her shoulder. “And you are mine as well, dearest love. Forever.”
Afterword
I hope you have enjoyed Alexander and Elspeth’s story, the first in the new Thompsons of Locust Street series. Please follow me on FaceBook, Twitter, or on my website hollybushbooks.com, for announcements about the next book in this series, The Bareknuckled Groom, due out in March 2021.
Other American set historical romance series:
The Crawford Family Series includes Train Station Bride, Contract to Wed, companion novella, The Maid’s Quarters, and Her Safe Harbor and tell the tales of three Boston sisters, heiresses to the family banking fortune.
The Gentry’s of Paradise chronicle the lives of Virginia horse breeders and begins with Beauregard and Eleanor Gentry’s story, set in 1842, in the prequel novella, Into the Evermore. The full-length novels are set in the 1870’s of the next generation of Gentrys and include For the Brave, For This Moment, and For Her Honor.
Reader favorites Romancing Olive and Reconstructing Jackson are American set Prairie Romances and Cross the Ocean is set in both England and America.
Politics & Bedfellows and All the News are my general fiction titles published under Hollis Bush.
Please leave a review where you purchased The Bachelor’s Bride or on GoodReads or other social sites for readers. Thank you so much for your purchase. I love to hear from readers!
The first few pages of Into the Evermore and the second book in this series, The Bareknuckle Groom follows.
Into the Evermore Excerpt
Into the Evermore
* * *
November 1842 Virginia
“Twenty dollars and you can have her. Don’t make no never mind to me what you do with her. I just want to see the gold first.”
The filthy-looking bearded man waved his gun in every direction as he spoke, including at the head of the young woman he held in his arms and at the three men in front of him. The trio all had handkerchiefs covering the lower part of their faces and hats pulled down tight, revealing six eyes now riveted to the pistol as it honed in on one random target after the other. The woman was struggling, although it was a pitiful attempt as she was clearly exhausted, and maybe hurt. The wind whipped through the trees, blowing the dry snow in circles around them. Beau Gentry watched the grim scene play out as he peered around a boulder down into a small ravine. He’d been propped against the sheltered rock, dozing, and thinking he’d best start a fire, when he heard voices below.
“Ain’t paying twenty dollars in gold for some used-up whore,” one of the masked men said.
The filthy man wrenched his arm tighter around the woman and put the gun to her temple. “Tell ’em, girly. Tell ’em you ain’t no whore.”
She shrank away from the barrel of the gun and moaned. “Please, mister. Let me go,” she begged.
“Tell ’em you ain’t no whore!”
She shook her head and pulled at the filthy man’s arm around her waist. “I’m no fallen lady,” she whispered. “I’m just, I’m just . . .” The woman went limp, and Beau thought she’d fainted but instead she vomited into the snow in front of her. He watched her choke and gag, bent over the man’s arm, and that’s when he realized she was barefoot.
Beau leaned back against the rock and checked his pistols and shotgun beside him. He hoped his horse wouldn’t bolt from the tree she was loosely tied to when the bullets started to fly. It’d be a long walk back to Winchester if she did, especially as he’d most likely be carrying the woman. “Shit,” he muttered. “Shit and damnation. She doesn’t have any goddamn shoes on.”
From his angle, he’d need to drop the three bandits with the two shells from the shotgun, and finish off any of them still breathing with one of his pistols. They’d be surprised and hopefully slow if the liquor smell floating on the wind meant anything. He was counting on the filthy man being hampered by the woman’s struggling. He