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Claiming the Heart - Softcover

Luck, Sara

 
9781451652246: Claiming the Heart
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1451652240 ISBN 13: 9781451652246
Verlag: Pocket Books, 2012

Inhaltsangabe

Sara Luck follows up her debut romance, Susanna’s Choice, with this sexy novel set in the American West.

Josie Leclede, while working with her father to survey the new Texas and Pacific Railroad, meets and falls in love with Gabe Corrigan, who is supervisor of the track laying crew. Gabe is divorced, the divorce having been arranged by his ex-wife’s politically powerful father. At first, Gabe, who had no input in the divorce, is determined to win his ex-wife back…feeling not love as much as a need to assuage his ego, which was badly bruised by the dissolution of the marriage. But as his love for Josie deepens, he realizes that his first marriage was a mistake, and he no longer wants it reestablished.

When the railroad reaches Ft. Worth, Gabe becomes a wealthy man, and is ready to declare his love for Josie, but his ex-wife and her father come back into the picture. Her father has reversed the divorce, and given his recently acquired wealth, Gabe’s wife wants him back.

Seeing and believing that she was only a diversion, a heartbroken Josie goes to Missouri to take a job with the newly chartered KATY Railroad. But has she seen the last of Gabe?

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Sara Luck taught school in Alaska for six years, spending much of that time 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Married to a retired army officer, (also a novelist) Sara and her husband live on the beach in Alabama with a Jack Russell terrier named Charley.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

ONE

Fort Worth, Texas

After the storm of the Civil War had passed, Henri saw opportunities in Texas. He sold out in St. Louis, and when Josie was sixteen years old, they and the Lanes, along with the Lanes’ two-year-old son, Julius, moved to Fort Worth, where Henri started the Laclede Grocery and Dry Goods store. They had been in Fort Worth for five years when seven-year-old Julius, who was sweeping the boardwalk in front of the grocery store, looked up to see the stagecoach arriving.

Dropping his broom, Julius ran inside to give the news.

“Miss Josie, the stagecoach is comin’ in! The horses are runnin’ fast!”

Empress Josephine Laclede brushed aside an errant fall of blond hair and walked to the front of the store to look out onto the street. A cloud of dust assailed her nostrils.

“Dooley, why do you have to do this? We know you’re coming,” Josie said aloud to no one in particular. She stepped out of the store, watching the other shopkeepers up and down Main Street hurry to meet the stage.

Dooley Simmons liked to make a grand entry, so the coach rolled down the street with the six horses at a trot far more rapid than their normal rate on the open road. Dust flew from the horses’ hooves and roiled up from the wheels, leaving a long haze hanging in the air behind it.

“Heyah! Heyah!” Dooley shouted to his team, snapping the reins. Children, black and white, ran down the street, keeping abreast of the coach, until it reached Andrew’s Tavern. There, the coach stopped, but the dust did not, and the cloud rolled over it so that when the passengers, three men and two women, stepped down, dust was on their clothes, in their hair, and hanging on their eyebrows. The women were coughing.

“How was your trip, Dooley?” someone called up to the driver as he was setting the brake and tying off the reins.

“No problem, but I’ve got news,” Dooley said as he threw down the mailbag to the postmaster.

“What news is that?”

“The railroad is a’comin’ to Fort Worth.”

“What?”

“I heard it with my own ears,” Dooley said. “There’s some fellers from the Texas and Pacific that’s on their way to Californey. They’s scoutin’ the route for the railroad, and I heard tell they’s comin’ to Fort Worth.”

“You don’t say. When do you think they’ll get here?”

“I can’t say for sure, but they’ll be pullin’ into Dallas more’n likely by the end of the week.”

“The railroad is a’comin’, the railroad is a’comin’!” several of the children began to shout.

As Josie looked toward the coach, she wondered what had caused all the excitement.

“Good morning, Josie,” John Jennings said, touching the brim of his hat. “Do you know if Paddock is upstairs?”

Paddock was Buckley Paddock, publisher and editor of the Fort Worth Democrat, the town’s only newspaper. Paddock’s office was on the second floor over Laclede’s grocery store.

“I’m sure he is, Mr. Jennings,” Josie said. “I haven’t seen him this morning, but I’ve heard him moving around up there. What’s going on? What’s all the excitement?”

“The most wonderful news you can imagine. The railroad is coming to town.”

“The railroad?”

“Yes, ma’am, the Texas and Pacific. I’m sure you know that a lot of town folks have been trying to get this; now it looks like it’s actually going to happen. You and your pa better get ready for a lot more business. This town is going to start growing like a weed.”

Shreveport, Louisiana—July 1872

Gabriel Corrigan stood on the platform waiting for the incoming train that would bring Colonel Thomas Scott to Shreveport. Colonel Scott, his immediate superior, was coming to congratulate Gabe on a successful business endeavor that had brought the bankrupt Southern Pacific Railroad under the name of the Texas and Pacific Railway. Gabe had been in Shreveport for the past several weeks, enlisting the help of Loomis Galloway, a former Confederate general. Galloway had helped him find those bankers and investors who would relinquish their rights to the Southern Pacific.

Marthalee Galloway, the general’s daughter, approached Gabe then.

“Captain Corrigan,” she said in a soft Southern drawl, as she pinned a flower to the lapel of his jacket. “When you welcome Colonel Scott to Shreveport, Father”—in her sultry accent the word sounded like fawthuh—“wants you to inform the colonel that he stands ready to provide any help you might need in building your railroad.”

“I’ll tell him that, Marthalee.”

He had met the general’s daughter on the first day he arrived in Shreveport. With long red hair and green eyes, she was a lovely and effervescent woman. Gabe had never met anyone more vivacious, or more beautiful, and she had done much to make his stay in Shreveport pleasant.

But lately, he was beginning to have an uneasy feeling about their relationship. She seemed to be getting more and more possessive. If he had to describe it, he would say that it was cloying.

“Oh, Gabe, darling. Isn’t it exciting? Standing on the platform of your very own railroad?”

“I’m afraid Colonel Scott may find a little fault with you assigning this railroad to me, when he is the one who paid the receivers one hundred and fifty thousand dollars of his own money.”

“You’re just being modest. We both know he wouldn’t own this railroad if it had not been for you and my father.” Marthalee took his arm and began clutching it to her chest, rubbing her barely covered breasts against it. With embarrassment, Gabe glanced toward General Galloway, who was just coming toward them.

“My boy, you’ve got to get used to these Southern belles. They’ll sing your praises, even if you won’t do it for yourself,” General Galloway said, removing an unlit cigar from his mouth.

Then the oncoming train blew a whistle announcing its approach. Gabe disentangled himself from Marthalee and stepped toward the arriving train as it roared into the station, gushing steam and spilling glowing cinders from the firebox. The driver wheels were three-quarters as high as Gabe was tall, and the train was so heavy that it shook the very ground.

Shortly after it came to a stop and sat there wreathed in escaping steam, the passengers started detraining. A man stepped down to be greeted by a woman, apparently his wife, who ran across the platform to take him in her arms. An older couple stepped off the train and stood there for a moment as if confused over what they should do next. Then a striking gentleman, whom Gabe knew to be twenty years older than his own twenty-nine years, disembarked. Gabe smiled, for that was Colonel Thomas Scott.

“Welcome to Shreveport,” Gabe said as he extended his hand to Colonel Scott.

“A job well done,” Colonel Scott said, shaking Gabe’s hand and clasping his shoulder. “And who, pray tell, is this beautiful lady?”

“You, of course, know General Galloway,” Gabe said, indicating the general. “This is Miss Galloway. Marthalee, this is Colonel Scott.”

“I am charmed, sir,” Marthalee said as she curtsied to the colonel.

“Tom. Call me Tom.”
...

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Verlag
Pocket Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2012
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1451652240
ISBN 13 
9781451652246
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
400
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Verantwortliche Person
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