by Jae
"Phin?" Amy shook her head from side to side, not sure if she had heard correctly. "You're in love with Phin? What about him?"
Nattie clutched her hands to her chest, the kerosene lantern still in one fist, nightgown and hairbrush in the other. "I think he likes me too. But we'll wait until I get back before we talk about any future we might have together."
Before Amy could think of an answer, Nattie opened the door. "Goodnight. And sorry for interrupting." She hurried away.
Amy fell into Rika's arms. "Oh, Lord. That was... Rika, I'm so sorry. This wasn't how I wanted our first... our wedding night to end. We'll have to be more careful in the future. If that had been one of the ranch hands instead of Nattie..." The thought made her tremble.
"It's all right." Rika combed her fingers through Amy's hair, putting it back into some semblance of order. "At least we don't have to lie to your sister anymore."
"It seems she was keeping her own secret." Amy couldn't get over it. Her little sister was in love — and with Phin, of all people. She eyed Rika, who looked back calmly. "Did you know about this?"
Rika shrugged. "I had my suspicions. Didn't you wonder why Phin took my rejection so awfully well?"
"Yeah, it made me wonder. But if he has feelings for Nattie too, why is he letting her go east?"
"Why did you almost let me go?"
The thought that she had almost lost Rika still hurt. "I thought I couldn't offer you what you deserve."
Rika stretched out her palm as if to present evidence. "See? That's why Phin isn't courting your sister just yet. And Nattie wants what your parents have — a true partnership. They can't have that unless Nattie finds her place in life first. She needs to find a way to contribute in her own special way to a ranch. But you wait and see. Once Nattie returns as a veterinary surgeon and Phin has built his ranch..."
Amy scratched her head. "Why on God's green earth is love so complicated?"
A soft smile parted Rika's lips, revealing the gap between her teeth. "Maybe so we'll appreciate it more once we find it. Now lock the front door and come to bed."
EPILOGUE
Baker Prairie, Oregon
April 27, 1871
"RUN!" RIKA GRIPPED Amy's arm and dragged her across Baker Prairie's dusty main street.
"I can't!" Amy gasped. "I can't run in these shoes."
"Stop complaining and run."
Amy stumbled. "Damn petticoats!"
Under the pretense of helping her, Rika gripped Amy's hand and encountered smooth silk instead of the familiar calluses. "The organ has already started, and your father will be a nervous wreck if we're late."
"You'd think it was Papa's wedding, not Nattie's."
They slid to a stop in front of the church portal. Rika smoothed a hand over the blue satin of Amy's dress. "You look beautiful."
Amy stopped grumbling. "So do you."
Their gazes touched and held.
Rika finally wrenched herself away. "Come on. Let's go in."
When they slipped into the church and hurried down the aisle, whispers rose in the pews.
"Poor girl," Rika heard one woman say. "Having to watch him marry someone else..."
"She seems fine since the Hamiltons took her in," another woman said.
Rika sighed. After almost three years, she'd thought people had finally stopped talking about her, Phin, and the Hamiltons.
"Don't mind them," Amy whispered and pulled her into the first pew.
Nora leaned over, her red hair glowing against the dark green of her dress. "Where have you been?"
"Oh, Amy had one of her horse ideas." Rika lovingly nudged Amy's knee.
"Horses? Now?"
Amy pointed over her shoulder to the pew behind them, where Frankie sat in an elaborate lace dress. "Frankie gave permission to have Mouse and a carriage waiting for Nattie and Phin in front of the church." Amy's pride was so endearing that Rika wanted to lean over and kiss her, but she settled for pressing her knee against Amy's.
Nora squeezed Amy's hand. "A gray horse pulling the carriage... what a good omen for their marriage!"
Organ music started up again, and the portal opened to the first notes of the wedding march.
People in the pews turned and craned their necks.
Rika caught a glance of Nattie, who floated down the aisle in her pale yellow organdy dress. A veil covered her face, but her hands clutched Luke's forearm and gave away her nervousness.
Luke strode with measured steps that made Rika wonder how often she had practiced the walk down the aisle. When it came to her daughters, Luke left nothing to chance.
They reached the front of the church. Luke raised Nattie's veil, kissed her cheek, and transferred Nattie's hand onto Phin's arm. One long glance and a formal nod to Phin and she slipped into the pew next to Nora.
Her hands shook when she smoothed them over her gray doeskin pants and the knee-length claret frock coat. She tugged at her cravat until Nora grabbed her hand and held it between her own.
After three years, Rika no longer found it strange to know Amy's handsome father was a woman.
"You know what day it is today?" Nora leaned close to Luke and whispered, just loud enough for Rika to hear.
"The day we start waiting for grandchildren?"
Nora coughed and then laughed. "Oh, I can't wait to see Grandpa Luke bounce half a dozen grandchildren on his knees. But that's not what I meant. Twenty years ago today was the day we first met."
"Yeah, I thought about that too when I had that conversation with Phin earlier. Twenty years..." Luke looked deeply into Nora's eyes. "It's been quite the journey."
"And it's not over."
"No," Luke said, "it's not." Ignoring the frowning people in the pews behind them, she leaned over and kissed Nora.
Rika looked away. She couldn't kiss her love so openly, but when they held on to the hymnbook together, she brushed her index finger against Amy's under the cover of the book.
Amy leaned over. Her breath caressed Rika's ear when she whispered, "To our journey."
About The Author
I GREW UP AMIDST the vineyards and gently sloping hills of southern Germany. I spent most of my childhood with my nose buried in a book, earning me the nickname "professor" before I even finished elementary school. The writing bug bit me at the age of eleven. The very first piece of fiction I ever wrote was a thirty-page western story that I still have somewhere (well-hidden because it alternately makes me cringe and laugh when I read it today). I wrote two dozen mostly novel-length stories (westerns, adventure stories, historical fiction, fantasy, science fiction – you name it, I've probably written it) in my "baby years" as a writer, but no one but my poor twin sister ever got to read them.
That changed when I discovered the Internet and the wondrous world of FanFiction and online stories. My parents belatedly got their wish – I took my nose out of my books and started to spend my time glued to the computer screen instead. Soon after, I wrote my first FanFiction, a Star Trek: Voyager story. Don't bother to search for it on the web; even if there was still a copy in circulation somewhere, it's in German. Back then, I would have taken a thousand oaths that I would never, ever be able to write more than a grocery list in English. Then I took an intensive, free online language course – almost eight years of constant fanfic reading. Let's just say that I learned some words I later had trouble explaining to my friends why I would know such expressions.
So in the beginning of 2006, I finally put my newly acquired knowledge of the English language to good use and wrote a series of three Law & Order: SVU fanfics in English. As my confidence grew, I wrote a longer FanFiction and then my first English historical fiction. In some ways, I've come full circle – because "Backwards to Oregon" takes place on the Western Frontier. Other than the setting I promise that it doesn't have much in common with my first childish attempt at writing.
I still live in Germany, where I work as a psychologist. When I'm not working or writing, I like to spend my time reading,
cooking for a bunch of friends, spending time with my nephew and niece, and watching way too many crime shows. I also enjoy learning new languages (Russian is my latest project. I haven't found any lesbian online stories using the Cyrillic alphabet to help me learn, though).
Other Titles By This Author
Backwards To Oregon – Lesbian: Historical Fiction, Romance
Summary
"LUKE" HAMILTON has always been sure that she’d never marry. She accepted that she would spend her life alone when she chose to live her life disguised as a man.
After working in a brothel for three years, Nora Macauley has lost all illusions about love. She no longer hopes for a man who will sweep her off her feet and take her away to begin a new, respectable life.
But now they find themselves married and on the way to Oregon in a covered wagon, with two thousand miles ahead of them.
* * *
Conflict of Interest – Book I – Lesbian: Romance, Crime
Summary
WORKAHOLIC detective Aiden Carlisle isn't looking for love... and certainly not at the law enforcement seminar she reluctantly agreed to attend. But their first lecturer is not at all what she expected.
Psychologist Dawn Kinsley has just found her place in life. After a failed relationship with a police officer, she has sworn to herself never to get involved with another cop again, but she feels a connection to Aiden from the very first moment.
Can Aiden keep from crossing the line when a brutal crime threatens to keep them apart... before they've even gotten together?
* * *
Next of Kin – Book II – Lesbian: Romance, Crime
Summary
SEX CRIMES Detective Aiden Carlisle is slowly getting used to being in a committed relationship with Dawn Kinsley – a relationship that isn't always easy since Dawn is not only a psychologist but also a former victim in one of Aiden's cases. Aiden’s private and professional lives collide when Dawn's newest patient gets in trouble with the law. Will she be able to stay objective enough to solve the case without pushing Dawn away?
The same case also throws Deputy District Attorney Kade Matheson's well-ordered life into chaos. In the last few years, Kade has taken case files and law books, not lovers, to bed. She has been focused only on her career and fought hard to win cases like Dawn's, but now the case forces her to finally face her attraction to women. She suddenly finds herself with two secret admirers – but which one is more dangerous, the threat to her life or her heart?
* * *
Second Nature - Lesbian: Shape-Shifter Romance
Summary
NOVELIST JORIE Price doesn't believe in the existence of shape-shifting creatures or true love. She leads a solitary life, and the paranormal romances she writes are pure fiction for her.
Griffin Westmore knows better — at least about one of these two things. She doesn't believe in love either, but she's one of the not-so-fictional shape-shifters. She's also a Saru — an elite soldier, investigator, and if need be an assassin with the mission to protect the shape-shifters' secret existence at any cost.
When Jorie gets too close to the truth in her latest shape-shifter romance, Griffin is sent to investigate — and if necessary to destroy the manuscript before it's published and to kill the writer.
Back Cover Summary
Hidden Truths
Sequel to Backwards to Oregon
Lesbian: Historical Fiction, Romance
LUKE HAMILTON has been living as a husband and father for the past seventeen years. No one but her wife, Nora, knows she is not the man she appears to be. They have raised their daughters to become honest and hard-working young women. But even with their loving foundation, a few fears and insecurities have Amy and Nattie hiding their own secrets.
Just as Luke sets out on a dangerous trip to Fort Boise, a newcomer arrives on the ranch — Rika Aaldenberg, who traveled to Oregon as a mail-order bride, hiding that she's not the woman in the letters.
When hidden truths are revealed, will their lives and their family fall apart or will love keep them together?
* * *
Thank You for Purchasing and Reading
Hidden Truths.
L-Book ePublisher, LLC
http://L-Book.com
Table of Content
Hidden Truths
Maps
Macauley Cotton Mill Boston, Massachusetts March 5, 1868
Train Station Boston, Massachusetts March 7, 1868
Post Office Cheyenne, Wyoming March 18, 1868
Hamilton Horse Ranch Baker Prairie, Oregon April 18, 1868
Stage Depot Baker Prairie, Oregon April 20, 1868
Hamilton Horse Ranch Baker Prairie, Oregon April 20, 1868
Hamilton Horse Ranch Baker Prairie, Oregon April 22, 1868
Hamilton Horse Ranch Baker Prairie, Oregon April 22, 1868
Big Laurel Hill, Oregon April 23, 1868
Baker Prairie, Oregon April 24, 1868
Hamilton Horse Ranch Baker Prairie, Oregon April 25, 1868
Indian Creek, Oregon April 27, 1868
Hamilton Horse Ranch Baker Prairie, Oregon April 28, 1868
The Dalles, Oregon May 2, 1868
Hamilton Horse Ranch Baker Prairie, Oregon May 4, 1868
Hamilton Horse Ranch Baker Prairie, Oregon May 6, 1868
Willow Creek, Oregon May 10, 1868
Hamilton Horse Ranch Baker Prairie, Oregon May 14, 1868
Fort Boise, Idaho May 20, 1868
Hamilton Horse Ranch Baker Prairie, Oregon May 21, 1868
Hamilton Horse Ranch Baker Prairie, Oregon May 21, 1868
Keeney Pass, Oregon May 24, 1868
Hamilton Horse Ranch Baker Prairie, Oregon May 31, 1868
Hamilton Horse Ranch Baker Prairie, Oregon June 5, 1868
The Dalles, Oregon June 9, 1868
Willamette Valley, Oregon June 21, 1868
Hamilton Horse Ranch Baker Prairie, Oregon June 21, 1868
Hamilton Horse Ranch Baker Prairie, Oregon June 22, 1868
Hamilton Horse Ranch Baker Prairie, Oregon June 22, 1868
Hamilton Horse Ranch Baker Prairie, Oregon June 22, 1868
Molalla River, Oregon June 22, 1868
Hamilton Horse Ranch Baker Prairie, Oregon June 22, 1868
Hamilton Horse Ranch Baker Prairie, Oregon June 24, 1868
Hamilton Horse Ranch Baker Prairie, Oregon June 25, 1868
Hamilton Horse Ranch Baker Prairie, Oregon June 26, 1868
Hamilton Horse Ranch Baker Prairie, Oregon June 26, 1868
Hamilton Horse Ranch Baker Prairie, Oregon June 26, 1868
Hamilton Horse Ranch Baker Prairie, Oregon June 26, 1868
Hamilton Horse Ranch Baker Prairie, Oregon June 26, 1868
Willamette Valley, Oregon June 27, 1868
Hamilton Horse Ranch Baker Prairie, Oregon July 4, 1868
Baker Prairie, Oregon July 12, 1868
Hamilton Horse Ranch Baker Prairie, Oregon September 19, 1868
EPILOGUE Baker Prairie, Oregon April 27, 1871
About The Author
Other Titles By This Author
Back Cover Summary