That information stunned Adam. She just lost her sister and then he had to give her this news? My word, no wonder she collapsed. Adam cleared his throat and spoke with compassion this time. “I’m sorry for your loss. Could your sister’s husband help you?” This time the woman didn’t meet his eyes when she shook her head no, but he noticed she tightened her hold on the boy. “Do you have somewhere else you could go?”
She rubbed her forehead as if trying to erase the bad news she just received. Then she looked up, not into his eyes but at his badge. “I’ll have to think about this,” she replied in a weary voice.
Adam extended his hand to the woman, waiting for her to rise out of the chair, trying to get her out of his office so he could head out to the ranch. He didn’t know what else to do for this poor woman and upset child. “I’ll collect your bags and walk you over to the hotel, Miss Donovan.”
***
Millie was afraid she’d faint again before the marshal got out of sight. She was so relieved when she first saw him, or who she thought was Sam Larson. She thought her luck had turned around when she saw his strong stature and clear, kind eyes. She and Tate would be okay here—in the middle of nowhere—also known as Clear Creek, Kansas.
She let out a slow breath, trying not to hyperventilate. The news of Sam’s demise was devastating to her plans, but having a lawman know where she was…made things worse.
Marshal Wilerson was more than ready to deposit her bags inside the hotel’s door and removed himself just as quickly, not even waiting to catch the hotel clerk’s eye to indicate that Millie needed assistance. He mumbled something about a family dinner he was late for and excused himself.
Millie had let him go, because she needed to get away from him, too. After looking out the hotel door to be sure he was out of sight, Millie scooted the bags out the door while wrangling Tate.
“Ma’am, may I help you?” The clerk had been busy with a guest when they first arrived, and was now ready to assist Millie.
“No, thank you,” Millie said as she slammed the door practically in his face.
Now what? “Tate, you’re going to have to walk while I get these bags.” Millie grasped the bags and coat, looking up and down the Main Street of this little town. Sam had sent her money for the train ticket so she had the fare to get here. Unfortunately, she had no extra money along because she had stuffed it into her sister’s hand before picking up Tate and running to the train station.
Millie took stock of Tate’s appearance, due to the smell that reeked from his pants. She didn’t have time to grab many of Tate’s things when they left in a hurry, so Tate only had a few diapers along. How was she going to wash and dry his little items? A bath would do wonders for both of their spirits too, but that was unlikely to happen anytime soon.
She sighed, turning her face up to the sky to mutter, “Now what, Da?” She never thought she’d be living on the streets again like she did in her old Conely’s Patch neighborhood after the Great Chicago fire two years ago, but that’s what it seemed would be her fate. Well, it was going to be “beg, borrow or steal” if she and Tate were going to eat and sleep tonight. She had lived through it before and would again, only then she didn’t have a toddler to worry about.
End of excerpt
Hilda Hogties a Horseman
A Historical Western Romance
Brides with Grit Series, Book 3
Ranch woman Hilda Hamner spent her youth traveling with her Swedish immigrant family as they drove cattle from Texas up to Kansas cow towns in the 1870s. Hilda decided to get off the cattle trail and bought an abandoned homestead in Kansas with her horse race winnings. She plans on raising horses—and finding a husband that doesn’t mind her tall, lanky body that’s usually dressed in men’s clothing.
Noah Wilerson planned to bring his intended bride from Illinois back to the Kansas homestead he started for them, but found out his fiancée had already married someone else when arriving at her father’s doorstep. After traveling back home, Noah finds a woman has taken over his claim, leaving him homeless and jobless.
Hilda realizes she needs help to make her horse ranch successful, and decides that Noah is the right man—to promote from horseman to husband on her ranch—if he’ll treat her as a special woman, and not just a ranching partner.
Noah wants his homestead back, and the woman who has transformed the simple soddie into a family home. Between family dramas, outlaw danger, and butting heads, which one will hogtie the other to get to the church altar first?
Cora Captures a Cowboy
A Historical Western Romance
Brides with Grit Series: Book 4
Bostonian Cora Elison arrives unannounced at her family’s ranch in Kansas, after her fiancé changed her status from bride to bridesmaid—at her own wedding. But after a few months, Cora thanks her lucky stars that he did because she has found a set of loyal friends, a way of life she relishes, and a cowboy she has become to love.
Dagmar Hamner and his family emigrated from Sweden to work on a Texas ranch, working cattle and herding them north over the Chisholm Trail. After his family decides to settle permanently in Kansas in 1873, he is hired for the foreman’s job at the six thousand acre Bar E Ranch.
All goes well for the Swedish cowboy until the absentee owner’s daughter arrives, wanting to learn how to become a rancher. Time makes them best friends, until a telegram arrives saying Cora’s parents are bringing an unknown groom to Kansas for her, insisting she be married when they arrive.
Cora asks Dagmar to marry her, but he balks at her proposal. Between confusion and interference, will Cora be able to capture her cowboy in time to haul him to the altar?
Sarah Snares a Soldier
A Historical Western Romance
Brides with Grit Series: Book 5
Rancher’s daughter Sarah Wilerson has been engaged to Ethan Paulson, a Clear Creek hotel manager, for two years. Although Ethan is a nice man, Sarah has postponed the wedding twice, unsure whether she can live and work in the family’s hotel—alongside an overbearing mother–in–law.
West Point–trained Captain Marcus Brenner was stationed at Fort Wallace in western Kansas, and wounded in a skirmish with the Cheyenne Indians. He has been discharged from the army and recuperating at his uncle’s ranch in Ellsworth County, Kansas. There he meets Sarah, who helps him recover from his wounds and nightmares. Marcus falls in love with Sarah, but refuses to consider marrying her because of her engagement to another man. And, due to his battle injuries, he may not be able to give Sarah the houseful of children for which she yearns for either.
Unable to bring herself to go through with her wedding on the third date set, Sarah leaves her groom at the altar and rides after Marcus, determined to convince him to marry her.
Fate throws a challenge in their path when they suddenly become guardians of six young children. Can Sarah convince Marcus to become the father the children need, and the husband she wants?
Lilly: Bride of Illinois
American Mail-Order Brides Series: Book 21
A clean, sweet historical romance set in 1890. Lilly Lind was forced to emigrate from Sweden two years ago, due to circumstances beyond her control. She finds a job as a garment maker in the Brown Textile Mill in Lawrence, Massachusetts, finally feeling as though she is settling in her new country. Then a suspicious fire burns the mill, making Lilly seek another way to survive. She answers a mail–order bride ad in the Grooms’ Gazette and sets off for Chicago, believing she will be a business owner’s wife.
Kansas rancher Seth Reagan travels to the Union Stockyards in Chicago to attend the 1890 American Fat Stock Show, the American Horse Show, and to purchase horseflesh to augment his herd. When arriving at the train station, he overhears a conversation between a young woman and a shady–looking man. Seth becomes concerned for the mail–order bride who is whisked away to a saloon, not to her new husband’s home.
When Seth goes to the saloon to check on the young woman, he finds her in trouble and offers to help
her escape. While buying horses and arranging their return travel to Kansas, Seth realizes he would like to bring Lilly home with him, too, but she is still being hunted by the saloon owner’s thugs.
Lilly’s good fortune in meeting Seth makes her want to start a life with this man, but he came to Illinois for horses, not a bride. Would he want her after he learns of her secrets?
Please go to the American Mail-Order Bride Series website for the complete list of all fifty books available for your reading enjoyment.
Hubalek’s Historical Fiction Series
Trail of Thread
A Woman's Westward Journey, Historical Letters 1854-1855
Trail of Thread Series, Book 1
Taste the dust of the road and feel the wind in your face as you travel with a Kentucky family by wagon train to the new territory of Kansas in 1854.
Find out what it was like for the thousands of families who made the cross-country journey into the unknown.
In this first book of the Trail of Thread series; in the form of letters she wrote on the journey, Deborah Pieratt describes the scenery, the everyday events on the trail, and the task of taking care of her family. Stories of humor and despair, along with her ongoing remarks about camping, cooking, and quilting on the wagon trail make you feel as if you pulled up stakes and are traveling with the Pieratt’s, too.
But hints of the brewing trouble ahead plagued them along the way as people questions their motive for settling in the new territory. If they are from the South, why don’t they have slaves with them? Would the Pieratt’s vote for or against legal slavery in the new state? Though Deborah does not realize it, her letters show how this trip affected her family for generations to come.
This series is based on author Linda K. Hubalek's ancestors that traveled from Kentucky to Kansas in 1854.
Thimble of Soil
A Woman's Quest for Land, Historical Letters 1854-1860
Trail of Thread Series, Book 2
Experience the terror of the fighting and the determination to endure as you stake a claim alongside the women caught in the bloody conflicts of Kansas in the 1850's.
Follow the widowed Margaret Ralston Kennedy (a relative of the author) in this second book of the Trail of Thread series, as she travels with eight of her thirteen children from Ohio to the Territory of Kansas in 1855.
Thousands of Americans headed west in the decade before the Civil War, but those who settled in Kansas suffered through frequent clashes between proslavery and free-state fractions that gripped the territory.
Told through her letters, Thimble of Soil describes the prevalent hardships and infrequent joys experienced by the hardy pioneer women of Kansas, who struggled to protect their families from terrorist raids while building new homes and new lives on the vast unbroken prairie.
Margaret was dedicated to the cause of the North, and while the male members of her family were away fighting for a free state, she valiantly defended their homestead and held their families together through the savage years of Bleeding Kansas.
Stitch of Courage
A Woman's Fight of Freedom, Historical Letters 1861-1865
Trail of Thread Series, Book 3
Feel the uncertainty, doubt, and danger faced by the pioneer women as they defend their homes and pray for their men during the Civil War.
Stitch of Courage, the third book in the Trail of Thread series, tells the story of the orphaned Maggie Kennedy, who followed her brothers to Kansas in the late 1850s.
The niece of Margaret Ralston Kennedy, the main character in Hubalek's Thimble of Soil book, Maggie married the son of Deborah Pieratt, whose story was told in the Hubalek's Trail of Thread book.
In letters to her sister in Ohio, Maggie describes how the women of Kansas faced the demons of the Civil War, fighting bravely to protect their homes and families while never knowing from one day to the next whether their men were alive or dead on the faraway battlefield.
We think the Civil War took place in the South, but the Plains States endured their share of battles and tragedy. Not only did Kansas and Missouri experience a resurgence in the terrorist raids that plagued them in the years before the war, the Confederate Army tried several times to sweep across the Great Plains and capture the West.
Tying the Knot
Kansas Quilter Series, Book 1
Tying the Knot, the first historical fiction book in the Kansas Quilter series follows Kizzie Pieratt as she receives trunks and quilts from her relatives to use on her family’s wagon trip from Kansas to the Indian Territory in 1902. Each chapter is like a short story, where Kizzie learns about the significant moves previous generations made for their families.
This book series shares the stories and photos of Linda Hubalek’s pioneer ancestors, the Pieratt’s who homesteaded in Kansas in the 1800s. The Kansas Quilter series continues the family stories written in Hubalek’s Trail of Thread series.
A bonus section tells the "story behind the story" of the Kansas Quilter series, and features photos of some of the quilts that the Pieratt family made.
Two more books, Patching Home and Piecing Memories are planned for this series in the future.
Butter in the Well
A Scandinavian Woman's Tale of Life on the Prairie, 1868-1888
Butter in the Well Series, Book 1
Read the fictionalized account of Kajsa Svenson Runeberg, an emigrant wife who recounts, through her diary, how she and her family built up a farm on the unsettled Kansas prairie from 1868 to 1888.
This historical fiction is based on the actual Swedish woman who homesteaded the author's childhood home and is the first of the four-book Butter in the Well series.
"...could well be the most endearing 'first settler' account ever told. Once a reader starts the book, they are compelled to keep reading to see what will happen next on the isolated prairie homestead. Not to be missed! —Capper's Family Bookstore
Hubalek has skillfully blended fiction and historic fact to recreate the life of Swedish homestead, Kajsa Svensson Runeberg. A story of emigrant dreams and pioneer struggles, it is an altogether rewarding story and one that deserves to be told. —Kansas State Historical Society
Prairie Bloomin’
The Prairie Blossoms for an Immigrant's Daughter, 1889-1900
Butter in the Well Series, Book 2
Popular Kansas author Linda K. Hubalek continues the story of a Swedish immigrant family featured in the Butter in the Well series with the second book Prairie Bloomin' (formerly titled Prärieblomman).
Prairie Bloomin' features the 1889 to 1900 diary of daughter Alma Swenson, as she grows up on the farm her parents homesteaded.
Even though born on the same farm in two different centuries, Prairie Bloomin’s main character, Alma Swenson Runneberg, and the author shared uncanny similarities while growing up in the Smoky Valley region of central Kansas. Both the third child of their families, they lived in the same house, played in the same yard and worked the same acres until each married and moved off the farm.
“…is a tender and touching diary…Hubalek has succeeded in blowing life into both Alma and the fascinating times she lived through. Hubalek’s books give Swedish-Americans a perspective of the past.” Anders Neumueller, Swedish Press, Vancouver, BC Canada
Egg Gravy
Authentic Recipes from the Butter in the Well Series
Butter in the Well Series, Book 3
Faded recipes. We’ve all come across them from time to time in our lives, either handwritten by ourselves or by another person in our family, or as old yellowed newspaper clippings stuck in a cookbook of sorts.
While doing research for the Butter in the Well series, the author found old recipes and home remedies along with family and community histories.
These recipes had been handwritten in old ledger books, on scraps of paper, in the margins of old cookbooks and forever etched in the memories of those pioneer women's children that Linda Hubalek interviewed.
As a result, Egg Gravy is a
collection of recipes the pioneer women used during their homesteading days. Most of the recipes can be traced back to the original women that homesteaded the real-life setting of Butter in the Well. Antique family photos add a personal feel to the cookbook.
From Green Pumpkin Pie, Caramel Ice Cream, and Smoked Pig Paunch to Christine's Fruit Cake, Apple Sauce Cake, and Rhubarb Marmalade, these are culinary samplings of a yesteryear that would grace any menu today. — Midwest Book Review
Looking Back
The Final Tale of Life on the Prairie, 1919
Butter in the Well Series, Book 4
The inevitable happens—time moves on and we grow older. Instead of our own little children surrounding us, grandchildren take their place.
Each new generation lives in a new age of technology, not realizing the changes the generations before theirs has seen-and improved for them.
The cycle of life has change the prairie also. Endless waves of tall native prairie grass have been reduced to uniform rows of grain crops. The curves of the river have shifted over the decades, eroded by both man and nature. The majestic prairie has been tamed over time.
In this fourth book of the Butter in the Well series, Kajsa Svensson Runeberg, now age 75, looks back at the changes she has experienced on the farm she homesteaded 51 years ago. She reminisces about the past, resolves the present situation, and looks toward their future off the farm.
Don't miss this heart-rending touching finale!
Planting Dreams
A Swedish Immigrant's Journey to America, 1868-1869
Planting Dreams Series, Book 1
Cate Corrals a Cattleman Page 11
