Captivated by the cowboy
Though Georgia belle Susanna Anders agrees to accompany her father on a silver prospecting trip to Colorado, her heart belongs to the South. Then charming cowboy Nate Northam saves her father’s life and gives them shelter at his ranch. Feeling gratitude is only natural, but falling for a Yankee? Both of their families would be outraged.
While Susanna’s father recovers at the Northams’ home, Nate can’t help being drawn to the sweet Southern beauty…and wishing he were free to think of courtship. That is until shocking revelations compel both Nate and Susanna to choose where their loyalties lie—fettered to the past or to the promise of a bold new love….
Four Stones Ranch: Love finds a home out West
“What do you think your town will be named?”
Nate shrugged one shoulder. “Don’t have any idea.” He stopped and gazed down at her, his green eyes bright in the daylight. “Don’t know how to say this in Spanish, but I’d like to call it ‘the place where I hope Susanna settles down.’”
She should answer with something saucy. Should laugh and walk away. Instead, she breathed out, “Oh, Nate, what a lovely thing to say.”
She had no idea how long they stood staring at each other. Yet she felt no embarrassment or awkwardness, just very much at home. Distant sounds reached her ears. Birds sang. Cattle bawled. Bess barked. None shattered the wrapped-in-cotton feeling that surrounded her. Against everything Mama had taught her, against her own sense of right and wrong, she longed for him to kiss her right here and now. She also hoped he would not. That was a bridge they must not cross, not now or ever.
LOUISE M. GOUGE
has been married to her husband, David, for forty-nine years. They have four children and eight grandchildren. Louise always had an active imagination, thinking up stories for her friends, classmates and family but seldom writing them down. At a friend’s insistence, she finally began to type up her latest idea. Before trying to find a publisher, Louise returned to college, earning a BA in English/creative writing and a master’s degree in liberal studies. She reworked that first novel based on what she had learned and sold it to a major Christian publisher. Louise then worked in television marketing for a short time before becoming a college English/humanities instructor. She has had fifteen novels published, several of which have earned multiple awards, including the Inspirational Reader’s Choice Award and the Laurel Wreath Award. Please visit her website at blog.louisemgouge.com.
Cowboy to the Rescue
Louise M. Gouge
Except the Lord build the house,
they labor in vain that build it.
—Psalms 127:1
This book is dedicated to the intrepid pioneers who settled the San Luis Valley of Colorado in the mid- to late 1800s. They could not have found a more beautiful place to make their homes than in this vast 7500 ft. high valley situated between the majestic Sangre de Cristo and San Juan Mountain ranges. It has been many years since I lived in the San Luis Valley, so my thanks go to Pam Williams of Hooper, Colorado, for her extensive on-site research on my behalf. With their permission, I named two of my characters after her and her husband, Charlie. These dear old friends are every bit as kind and wise as their namesakes. I also must thank my dear husband of forty-nine years, David Gouge (a U.S. Army veteran), for his help in character development, especially for my military characters.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Dear Reader
Questions for Discussion
June 1878
Daddy wouldn’t make it through another bitter-cold night. Susanna wasn’t even sure how she’d managed not to freeze to death on this Colorado mountainside over the past ten or so hours. Maybe her anger had kept her alive, a real rage like some folks back home in Georgia still felt toward the North and all Yankees. For the first time in all her nineteen years, she understood firsthand how they felt.
The only trouble was that she had no idea whom to hate. Still, if God brought them out of this predicament, she would see to it that justice was meted out on whoever robbed Daddy, beat him almost to death and left him to die amid their scattered belongings. If Susanna hadn’t been over the hill fetching water for their supper, she had no doubt those men would have done their worst to her, as well. Always the protector, Daddy had managed to tell her that when the villains had demanded to know who owned the female fripperies in the wagon, he’d told them his wife had been buried on the trail. Such a lie must have cost her truthful father dearly, but it had saved her from unknown horrors.
She