Lim met her gaze and smiled. He couldn't imagine life without Katie. She was his bridge to the white world, his friend, teacher, and counselor. When they were little children, they had sat under the trellis of morning glory next to the MacKenzie house while she shared her lessons with him, teaching him not only to read and write in English, but to speak the white man's language without a trace of his parents' accent. He would never forget the debt he owed her.
"Look what my father gave me for my birthday," Katie said now, holding up her book. "Jane Eyre. It's a wonderful, haunting romance set in Yorkshire, England."
Lim grinned as they turned up Washington Street toward the Gazette office. "How can a romance be both wonderful and haunting?"
"This one is! Charlotte Bronte is a very talented author."
"A lady wrote this book?" he exclaimed in surprise.
Opening the door to the Gazette's cramped offices, she was about to reply when Gideon Henderson called to her from his desk. "Kathleen! I'm glad you're here. I need you to take over Owly Shaw's duties. He's ridden over to Murphys to talk to the stage driver."
"The stage driver?"
"Haven't you heard?" Gideon's glasses slid down his nose as he sorted through the papers littering his desk, perpetually in search of the one that wasn't there. "The Griffin robbed the Sonora stage this morning! Took a thousand dollars in gold off one of the passengers, but left the others in peace. He's the confoundedest stagecoach robber I've ever heard of!" As an afterthought, Henderson picked up a piece of white linen from among the papers and tossed it to Katie. "Care for a souvenir?"
She stared down at the snowy handkerchief, its corner embroidered with the figure of an animal that appeared to be half eagle, half lion. Katie swallowed hard and whispered, "It's a griffin...."
"Romance the way it was meant to be," raves Kathe Robin of Romantic Times Magazine about Cynthia Wright's 13 "classic" historical romances.
A reader says: "Her warm, adventurous, loving stories match Kathleen Woodiwiss in sensuality, but have a wholesome sweetness and zest all their own."
Cynthia Wright launched her career as a bestselling novelist with the publication of CAROLINE, when she was twenty-three. She went on to write 12 more beloved and acclaimed historical romances set in Colonial America, Regency England & America, Medieval England & France, and the American West. Seven of these, the intertwined Raveneau Novels and Beauvisage Novels, have special places on the keeper shelves of readers around the world.
Cynthia's novels have won many awards from Romantic Times and Affaire de Coeur, but her favorites are messages from readers like this one: "Your books show love the way you want your own relationship to be: real AND romantic!" After taking a break from writing for several years, Cynthia is excited to be back as an "indie" author, bringing all 13 of her novels back as eBooks (newly edited, with gorgeous new covers!). She will also release a new Raveneau novel, TEMPEST, in 2012, with more on the horizon.
Today, Cynthia lives in northern California with her husband, Alvaro, in a 1930's Spanish cottage. When they aren't riding their tandem road bike or traveling in their 1959 vintage airstream, she loves spending time with her family, especially her two young grandsons. Cynthia is also a college student who says, "It's never too late to re-write the story of your own life!"
Cynthia invites readers to join her at her website and blog: www.cynthia-wright.com
And on Facebook:
www.facebook.com/cynthiawrightauthor
Table of Contents
Cover
Books by Cynthia Wright
Dedication
Prologue
PART 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
PART 2
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
PART 3
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
Author's Note
Excerpt from FIREBLOSSOM by Cynthia Wright
Excerpt from OF ONE HEART by Cynthia Wright
Excerpt from BRIGHTER THAN GOLD by Cynthia Wright
Meet the Author
Wildblossom Page 41