Widows, Brides & Secret Babies Series by Zina Abbott

Roslyn Welsh is sent by stagecoach to Junction City to marry a man with whom her aunt and guardian, without Roslyn’s knowledge, had been corresponding. His requirements for a wife were that she must be at least twenty-one years of age with a family Bible for proof, and she must have no children. Only, Roslyn is not quite twenty-one, she has a baby, and her aunt has no intention of sending the family Bible with her. The marriage prospect turns into a disaster... moreRoslyn Welsh is sent by stagecoach to Junction City to marry a man with whom her aunt and guardian, without Roslyn’s knowledge, had been corresponding. His requirements for a wife were that she must be at least twenty-one years of age with a family Bible for proof, and she must have no children. Only, Roslyn is not quite twenty-one, she has a baby, and her aunt has no intention of sending the family Bible with her. The marriage prospect turns into a disaster. Stuck in a strange town with no money and told there is no work for a decent woman with a baby, Roslyn accepts an offer to ride the stagecoach to the Ellsworth B.O.D. Stagecoach station to help the stationmaster’s wife while she figures what to do with her future. Elam Stewart survived the American Civil War, but his left leg from just above the knee down did not. With no home to return to and realizing there are very few people willing to hire a man with only one good leg, he’s convinced he has no future. While working as a day laborer in the local livery, he becomes intrigued by a visitor named Ross who is anxious to spend time with the horses. Elam discovers Ross’s secret. Then he learns where Ross intends to seek work. Even though he does not have a future, he does have a Spencer repeating rifle. He can have a purpose.Roslyn and Elam ride the same stagecoach to the Ellsworth Station on the Kansas frontier. Between resentments among the stock tenders, difficulties with animals that pass through the station, and the threat of attacks by the Cheyenne, is there a future for Roslyn and Elam at the station? Or will their future take them on another stagecoach ride away from Ellsworth?Please look for my other two books in the Widows, Brides & Secret Babies series, Mail Order Lorena and Mail Order Penelope, that will be published this summer. Although each story is written as a stand-alone book, the three stories are related and part or all of them involve the stagecoaches and stations on the Kansas frontier in the 1860s after the Civil War. less

After she loses the love of her life, can she find love in the man she finds?Penelope Newton Humphry lost her husband to the war as surely as if he died in combat. Her sweetheart since her early teens, she waited until the war ended to marry Jeremy, only to realize he never fully returned. Dying from pneumonia, he leaves Penelope with nothing but his unborn child. Penelope knows she must remarry—and soon... moreAfter she loses the love of her life, can she find love in the man she finds?Penelope Newton Humphry lost her husband to the war as surely as if he died in combat. Her sweetheart since her early teens, she waited until the war ended to marry Jeremy, only to realize he never fully returned. Dying from pneumonia, he leaves Penelope with nothing but his unborn child. Penelope knows she must remarry—and soon. With her father and brother killed during Quantrill’s Raid on Lawrence, Kansas, her mother’s mind half-gone, and the farm sold to a neighbor to be fully relinquished once her mother, suffering from cancer dies, she accepts the offer of marriage from a man living near Fort Wallace she met through correspondence. Only, during the stagecoach ride to western Kansas, she discovers matters are not as she was led to believe.As a regimental field surgeon, widower Dr. Marcus Garrett saw enough mangled bodies during his four years in the American Civil War to give him a lifetime of nightmares. With the war over, the turmoil within still rages. Only his responsibility for his thirteen-year-old son, Theo, being raised by his older sister, keeps him going. In a moment of weakness, he reenlists to serve as a post surgeon. Currently stationed in Fort Larned in Kansas, he knows to be assigned officers' quarters so he can be reunited with Theo, he needs a wife—someone willing love a boy whose father is a stranger to him.Traveling in tandem with the stagecoach for protection along the Smoky Hill Trail to Fort Monument to care for soldiers wounded in a confrontation with Cheyenne warriors, the last thing he expected to encounter was a young widow with a fourteen-month-old child headed the same direction. He tries to convince to return to eastern Kansas--to safety. She is determined her future lies to the west.In exchange for a family for her and baby Jeremy, can Penelope learn to love a man who must first find peace within before he rebuilds a relationship with his son?Please look for my other two books in the Widows, Brides & Secret Babies series, Mail Order Roslyn and Mail Order Lorena. Although each story is written as a stand-alone book, the three stories are related. Part or all of them involve the stagecoaches and stations on the Kansas frontier in 1866 and 1867. less