More Precious Than Gold: Inspirational Historical Western

by Terri Grace

  SAPPHIRE

  The determined Sapphire Alexander is a successful nurse and midwife at San Francisco’s prestigious Central Memorial Hospital, but she is plagued by the attentions of Dr Michael “Itchy Fingers” Spinks. Her repeated rebuffs only anger him, and he eventually has her fired because she won’t give in to him. Not only that, but he spreads a rumor around the other San Francisco hospitals that she is incompetent. Finally, an old friend helps her get a new position at a charity hospital. There, her prayers trigger a miracle that saves a woman’s life, and in her gratitude she gives her a tiny gold nugget and an old, indecipherable map. One day she stumbles over a man collapsed in the street. Ezra Bradley of Rainbow Mountain was recently kicked by a horse. His face is disfigured, and now an internal injury threatens his life. Ezra’s disfigurement makes him believe that no woman will ever fall in love with him and relieve his loneliness. Will Sapphire’s love, faith and skills save his life and prove him wrong?

  AMETHYST

  Amethyst Mayfield is the daughter of an archeologist whose travels lead him to the Amazon forest - he never returns. Amongst the artifacts that he leaves is a fragment of parchment promising rich returns from the Montana hills. Amethyst, fascinated and keen to continue her father’s legacy, devises a way to move to Montana. She becomes a mail order bride to the new sheriff of Rainbow Mountain, Augustus Gordon. He is troubled by his wife’s frequent disappearances to the mountains. When he follows her it almost leads them, and their unborn child, to the brink of death. Will God provide a way of escape for the couple? And will Amethyst and Augustus discover the gold in each other?

  VIOLET

  Violet Wakefield is desperate. As a simple seamstress she faces the impossible dilemma of providing the necessary fees for her sick mother’s urgent medical care. Through the prayerful intervention of her pastor, she is led to respond to the pleas of a lonely logger from Rainbow Mountain. He is willing to pay a handsome dowry for a suitable Christian bride. She reluctantly leaves her mother to join Martin Allen, who pays for her mother’s medical care. Violet’s joy is cut short though when she discovers that her new husband has an obsession that has led to near disaster on more than one occasion. It is only an expected storm hitting their home that convinces Martin that there are more important and precious things than the promise of gold. The crumpled parchment in Martin’s possession is kept as a testament to his dangerous obsession, but is soon forgotten as the couple begin a new chapter in their lives.

  Seven Colors of Love

  Each of our brides has discovered love in the Montana mountains. None knows that the others own a piece of the map, and each is going about their lives unaware that a storm is brewing. Creeping from the past comes a greedy hand ready to grasp the hidden treasure, but first the seven brides must be lured where their bounty can be stolen. Read and wonder as the thrilling finale of the Rainbow Mountain Brides gallops to its magnificent conclusion.

  BUY THE BOX

  Chapter 20

  BONUS CHAPTER - RUBY’S RETURN

  Chapter 1 - Abandoned

  “Ruby, you lazy, good-for-nothing girl, where are you?” The shrill voice cut through the early-morning silence, causing the sixteen-year-old girl who was washing clothes to wince.

  “What now?” Ruby Murphy wondered. Would her troubles never end? Day in and day out the young girl was reminded that her status in this household was no more than that of a servant – an unpaid one, at that.

  Today should be a happy day for her, for she had turned sixteen, but she knew that it was going to be like any other day. Washing, cleaning, cooking, sewing – doing all manner of household chores for her ungrateful relatives. Ruby lived with her Aunt Florence, who was her mother’s first cousin. Aunt Florence had been forced to take Ruby in when Ruby’s parents abandoned her at the woman’s doorstep when she was two years old and disappeared into thin air. Over the years, Ruby had wondered if she was such a terrible child that her own parents had had to leave her. No-one talked about them and she dared not ask, so she had no idea if they were still alive.

  Aunt Florence was stern and never spared a single smile for her niece, reserving them for her own three children. She had two daughters and a son. They were older than Ruby but she had to pick up after them and clean . She was never let out of the house unless it was to accompany her aunt to the market place. Once in a while, she would accompany the family to church, where they looked like a good Christian family. Many times Ruby wondered why they were so hypocritical; then she would chide herself for being ungracious. After all, Aunt Florence and Uncle Rupert Hayes had given her a roof for fourteen years.

  “Where is this lazy, good-for-nothing girl?” she heard her cousin Melissa grumbling. She stopped washing and entered the house to find out what her cousin wanted.

  Melissa was a pretty girl of twenty-two and was Aunt Florence’s eldest child. She was betrothed to a man who worked as a clerk for a lawyer. The man also came from a wealthy family and so Melissa never ceased to boast to the orphan girl about her own good fortune.

  “Yes, Cousin Melissa? Here I am.”

  “Took your time, now.” Melissa poked Ruby’s head with her long finger. “I will tell Mama that you are becoming very insolent.”

  “I am sorry.” Ruby fought back the tears. Melissa very well knew that she washed clothes every morning. “I am sorry, Cousin Melissa.”

  Melissa looked at the timid girl and sneered. In actual fact, she was very jealous of Ruby because, in spite of their ill treatment of the girl, she was very beautiful. She took after her Italian father – as their mother liked to sneer at her about day after day. Ruby’s hair was auburn and she had beautiful, expressive, green eyes that seemed to sparkle. She was slender, with a pixie face and heart-shaped lips. Her skin had a dark hue, which made her cousins look pale and washed-out, and it irked them no end.

  “Stop standing there and help me get dressed. Malcolm is coming to take me out riding in the park and I don’t want to be late because you are too lazy to stir yourself up from your bed.”

  Ruby simply did as she was bid, which was the first of the many chores she had to do that morning.

  Ten o’clock came and she had not yet finished washing because, after helping Melissa, she had had to go and help Audrey, and then finally Francis. Audrey and Francis were her two other cousins. She hated entering Francis’s bedroom to clean up, especially when he was there, because he made her feel quite uncomfortable. He was eighteen years old and had an unnerving look on his face. She was always careful to keep the door open when he was in the room. She did not trust him one bit and prayed that he would leave her alone.

  “My cousin,” he said with a sneer on his face. He held her chin in his large hands and forced her to look up at him. “Why do you pretend that you are a good girl when we all know that you are always making eyes at me?” He leaned forward as though he wanted to kiss her, his other hand going around her body. Something snapped inside her. She raised her knee and kicked him in the groin, and he dropped to his knees and howled. She ran out of the room and stood by the door as her aunt and uncle came tearing down the stairs to see what had happened to their beloved son and heir.

  No one listened to Ruby as she tried to explain what had happened. Francis said that Ruby had stolen money from his dressing table and when he asked about it she kicked him.

  “Ingrate!” Her aunt slapped her hard and she literally saw stars. “I gave you a home when your useless mother dumped you on me, and this is how you repay me? Get out of my house right now.” She pushed the weeping girl out of the door and down the steps.

  Ruby wept at the unfair treatment and tried to beg her aunt for forgiveness, because she had nowhere else to go. The response she got was her carpetbag being thrown at her. The door was slammed shut.

  People stared at her curiously but shrugged and went on their way. It was not unusual for domestic servants to be kicked out of their masters’ homes for misbehaving. This was probably another one of those and it was n
one of their business.

  “Where will I go, Lord?” She wept as she picked up her bag and dragged her feet away from the house. She only stopped to look back once and saw her cousin Melissa staring at her from the upstairs window. She had a gleeful look on her face and Ruby wondered why her cousin hated her so much; then she turned and walked away.

  * * *

  “You say your aunt threw you out when your cousin tried to molest you?”

  “Yes, Nancy, and I have nowhere else to go.” Ruby wiped her tears. “Please may I stay with you for a few days as I try to get another job?”

  Nancy Meyers looked at her friend, a slight frown on her face. That she was not happy at Ruby descending on her just when she was about to sit down for lunch with her husband was evident. They lived in a shanty town near the docks, where her husband worked. Nancy was twenty years old and had worked as a maid for Aunt Florence for a while until Ruby turned fourteen. After that, Ruby became the servant and Nancy had been relieved of her duties. The two girls had been friends during the time they both lived with Aunt Florence. Nancy would tell Ruby stories of a better life outside the house they called a prison.

  By the time she was relieved of her duties, Nancy had already met Winston Schaffer, the son of German immigrants, and fallen in love with him. She got married to him soon after and on the rare occasion that Ruby was let out of the house she would visit her. That is why Ruby’s feet had led her to Nancy’s house.

  “I know your house is small and it is an inconvenience for you, but please just let me sleep here tonight. By tomorrow I am sure I will have found another position and will move out of your home.”

  “All right.” Nancy was reluctant to allow her friend into her house, and Ruby understood that it was because they often did not have enough food to eat. She would not impose further. If only she could get some water to drink once in a while she would be all right. Besides, once she found a job she was sure her employers would give her something to eat.

  Things did not go as planned. For two weeks the girl walked the streets of New York seeking employment, but she was unsuccessful. All the women she approached for work claimed she was too young, but she was unaware that her beauty was a threat to them. She also noticed that Nancy was acting coldly towards her. She prayed that she would find work soon.

  On the last Friday of October, she left the house very early, hoping that she would find work cleaning pots and pans at a hotel that she had spotted on her way home the previous day. The owner looked at her with a leer that made her skin crawl, and when his wife noticed it she was chased away and told to never again show her face anywhere near the hotel.

  When she got home she found Nancy waiting for her, and the expression on her face did not bode well. “I’m sorry, Ruby, I have tried to plead with Winston but he says he cannot feed an extra mouth, and yet you can work.”

  “Please, Nancy. I’ve been walking for two weeks. God will help me get a job.”

  Nancy shook her head, and that was when Ruby noticed her carpetbag standing forlornly at the door. She was being kicked out again. She closed her eyes, fighting back her tears.

  “When you came here you said you would find a job within a day, but it has been two weeks now. I’m sorry, but I cannot continue to allow you to live here. My husband is not happy about having another woman around the house, and because he is the one who is supporting me, there is nothing I can do.”

  “Thank you,” Ruby whispered, picking up her bag. “Thank you for giving me shelter. May God bless you.” She turned to leave.

  “Wait!” Nancy held out her hand and Ruby saw a few coins. “Take these. It is money that Winston left for food but you can have it.”

  Ruby nodded and accepted the coins. She walked with a bowed head and did not turn around, so she didn’t see the sorrow on her friend’s face. Her feet seemed to have a mind of their own and took her to a sweatshop. They were always advertising for seamstresses and she knew that her work was good since Aunt Florence had made her start sewing when she was very young.

  It was a dilapidated building which seemed to be on its last legs, but she bravely went in. The supervisor looked at her. He was a stern-looking man.

  “What do you want?” he barked at her.

  “Please, sir,” she said, “I can sew. I worked as a domestic servant and did all the sewing and repairing.”

  “Do you want to get me in trouble for employing a child?” he roared. “Get out of here this instant, or I will box your ears.”

  “Please, sir, I will do any work.”

  “There is no work here, and especially not for someone as young as you are. You will be more of a distraction than a help and I do not have time for nonsense. Get out of here at once.” He handled her roughly and once again Ruby found herself on the streets.

  Continued In Ruby’s Return…

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