A New Year seems like a good time for a new FREE read. So I’ve swapped out my previous newsletter subscriber free read, Choosing Bravery, with Rescuing Raven—the short story I wrote at the beginning of 2018 (and that for all of 2018 was only available in the limited–edition charity anthology Wild Deadwood Tales).
Note: with this change, you can read Choosing Bravery for FREE with a Kindle Unlimited subscription.
CLICK HERE to join my newsletter & receive a free e-copy of Rescuing Raven.
Or you can buy the story for $0.99 on Amazon US | CA | UK | Aus
RESCUING RAVEN – BOOK BLURB
Deadwood 1876…
In a gold rush storm, can an unlikely pair rescue each other?
Raven wants to save one person. Charlie wants to save the world. Their warring nations thrust them together but duty pulled them apart—until their paths crossed again in Deadwood for a fight for love.
~ * ~
The above blurb is very short and writing a longer one is on my to-do list 🙂
Writing this blog prompted me to add… This story features a grown-up Charlie Jennings who was a young boy in my Oregon Trail story, Between Heaven & Hell (set in 1850).
RESCUING RAVEN – EXCERPT
August 1876, Dakota Territory
Fighting a growing impatience fueled by rage, Charlie Jennings drew his revolver and urged his horse through the trees flanking the Deadwood Trail. Below him, an Appaloosa with the strikingly similar color of his own horse—white covered from head to hock in chestnut spots—was rein-tied to the back of a buckboard. If the horse hadn’t caught his attention, he might not have given the transport a second look.
He might not have seen her.
The wagon rattled forward carrying one silent and seven grumbling passengers. When a bend in the trail cast the sun in the eyes of the guards, one riding behind and the other in front, he charged his spotted mare down onto the road.
Everyone in the wagon, except for the cowering raven-haired woman, screamed. The driver jerked on the reins. The horses skidded to a halt. The guards scrambled for their weapons.
The click of his revolver being cocked made them all freeze.
The silence that followed was as heated as the summer sun on his back. The guards glared at him through squinted eyes. He kept his focus on them as well—lined up in a neat row down the barrel of his Colt Peacemaker.
“Jennings,” growled the closest man, who went by the name Big Bill. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Yeah,” hollered Bill’s partner, a stranger who resembled a beanpole.
Frontier trails and towns had a way of attracting similarly named men, including the Charlies like him. They also had a fondness for embellishment. The deck was stacked in favor of the rear guard being called Skinny Sam or Loudmouth Pete.
“We heard you were guidin’ a miner ’n his four kids, the ones who lost their ma, away from Deadwood.” At least Skinny hadn’t heard, and used, the double-barreled moniker Charlie had been saddled with since arriving in the Black Hills.
“But you,” he shot back, “didn’t hear that my job finished ahead of schedule.”
“Well,” Bill said on a long breath, “ain’t that a spot of bad luck.”
“Not for one of your passengers.” He didn’t look her way. He’d already seen enough: a ragtag assortment of women, one hunched with her dark head over her wrists tied to the wagon.
To read the rest of the excerpt CLICK HERE.
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COMING NEXT WEEK…
My newly written Story Inspiration page for Rescuing Raven.
UPDATED TO SAY… here’s the Story Inspiration page 🙂
