The Horseman's Bride. Elizabeth Lane

       Praise for Elizabeth Lane

       THE HORSEMAN’S BRIDE

      ‘The Gustavson family has won the hearts of Americana fans seeking a realistic love story. Lane wisely continues in this vein with the latest in her series, in which a fiery young woman meets her match in a mysterious drifter.’

      —RT Book Reviews

       HIS SUBSTITUTE BRIDE

      ‘This tender and loving story, spinning off from Lane’s previous Western, showcases her talent for drawing three-dimensional characters and placing them in an exciting time and place.’

      —RT Book Reviews

       THE BORROWED BRIDE

      ‘Lane’s pleasing love story brims over with tender touches.’

      —RT Book Reviews

       ON THE WINGS OF LOVE

      ‘Lane uses a turn-of-the-century backdrop and her knowledge of aviation to her advantage in a lively story featuring strong-willed characters. She reaches for an audience searching for fresh historical territory in her charming feminist novel.’

      —RT Book Reviews

       “Hellfire, I never could stand seeing a woman cry!”

      With one swift, sure movement Jace’s mouth captured Clara’s. She felt her knees go weak. She had wanted Jace to kiss her, she realized, from the first moment she’d looked at him.

      With a little whimper, she melted into his heat. Instinctively she rose on tiptoe, straining upward to find him.

      “Oh, damn it, don’t, Clara …” Jace groaned in feeble protest. Then his big hands reached for her through the nightgown and lifted her high and hard against him.

      About the Author

      ELIZABETH LANE has lived and travelled in many parts of the world, including Europe, Latin America and the Far East, but her heart remains in the American West, where she was born and raised. Her idea of heaven is hiking a mountain trail on a clear autumn day. She also enjoys music, animals and dancing. You can learn more about Elizabeth by visiting her website at www.elizabethlaneauthor.com

      THE HORSEMAN’S BRIDE features characters you will have met in THE BORROWED BRIDE and HIS SUBSTITUTE BRIDE

       Previous novels by this author:

      ANGELS IN THE SNOW

      (part of Stay for Christmas anthology)

      HER DEAREST ENEMY

      THE STRANGER

THE BORROWED BRIDE*

      HIS SUBSTITUTE BRIDE*

      THE HOMECOMING

      (part of Cowboy Christmas anthology)

*linked by character

       and in Mills & Boon^® Super Historical:

      ON THE WINGS OF LOVE

      The Horseman’s

      Bride

      Elizabeth Lane

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      To Scott, Tiffany, Adam, Alec and Olivia.

      Thank you for blessing my life.

       Chapter One

       Dutchman’s Creek, Colorado June 7, 1919

      Clara Seavers closed the paddock gate and looped the chain over the wooden post. The morning air was crisp, the sky as blue as a jay’s wing above the snowcapped Rockies. It was a perfect day for a ride.

      Swinging into the saddle, she urged the two-year-old gelding to a trot. Foxfire, as she’d named the leggy chestnut colt, had been foaled on the Seavers Ranch. Clara had broken him herself. He could run like the wind, but he was skittish and full of ginger. Keeping him under control required constant attention, which was why Clara allowed no one other than herself to ride him.

      This morning the colt was responding well. With a press of her boot heels, Clara opened him up to a canter. She could feel the power in the solid body, feel the young horse’s impatience to break away and gallop full out across the open pastureland. Only her discipline held him back.

      For as long as she could remember, Clara had wanted to breed and train fine horses. She’d passed up her parents’ offer of college to stay on the ranch and pursue her dream. Now, at nineteen, she could see that dream coming true. Foxfire was the first of several colts and fillies with champion quarter horse bloodlines. In time, she vowed, the Seavers Ranch would be as well-known for prize horses as it was for cattle.

      Gazing across the distant fields, she could see her grandma Gustavson’s farm. Days had passed since Clara’s last visit to her grandmother. It was high time she paid her another call.

      For years Clara’s parents had begged the old woman to move into their spacious family ranch house. But Mary Gustavson was as iron willed as her Viking forebearers. She was determined to live out her days on the land she’d homesteaded with her husband, Soren, in the two-story log house where they’d raised seven children.

      So far Mary had done all right. For a woman in her seventies, her health was fair, and the rental of pastureland to the Seavers family gave her enough money to live on. She did her own chores and borrowed the ranch hands for occasional heavy work. But seventy-two was too old to be living alone. The family worried increasingly that something would go wrong and no one would be there to help her.

      Clara pushed Foxfire to a lope, feeling the joyful stretch of the colt’s body between her knees. There was an old barbed-wire fence between the ranch land and her grandmother’s property. But the wires were down in several places where the cattle had butted against the posts. It would, as always, be easy to jump the horse through.

      They came up fast on the fence, with Clara leaning forward in the saddle. She was urging her mount to a jump when she caught sight of the gleaming new barbed wire at the level of the colt’s chest.

       Some fool had fixed the fence!

      With an unladylike curse, she wrenched the reins to one side. They managed to avoid the fence, but the pressure on his bit-tender mouth sent Foxfire into a frenzy. He reared and stumbled sideways. Thrown from the saddle, Clara slammed to the ground. For a terrifying instant the colt teetered above her, hoofs flailing. Then he regained his balance, wheeled and galloped away.

      Clara lay gasping on her back. Cautiously she moved her arms and legs. Nothing felt broken, but the hard landing had knocked the wind out of her. She took a moment to gather her wits. First she needed to catch her breath. Then she would have to get up and catch her horse. After that she intended to hunt down the addlepated so-and-so who’d replaced the sagging wire and give him a piece of her mind.

      “Are you all right?” The voice that spoke was distinctly male, with a gravelly undertone. The face that loomed into sight above her was square-boned with a long, stubbled jaw. Tawny curls, plastered with sweat and dust, tumbled over blazing blue eyes.

      It flashed through her mind that her virtue