Time to talk about book #2 in the Wyoming Sunrise Series.
I probably did more research for this book than any book for a while and I did a LOT for book #1 of this series
But a woman justice of the peace in Wyoming in 1870? Oh yes it is true. It happened. Esther Hobart Morris was the first female justice of the peace in America so my heroine is the SECOND. I've found research since, not exactly clear, but I think there were several woman appointed as Justices of the Peace right after Esther Morris. So mine might be the THIRD OR FOURTH OR FIFTH. I don't know for sure, but she was real early on!
My heroine, Nell, just wants to make pretty dresses. She's a talented seamstress and she loves it. But let's face it, she's living in a state with total 9000 people. In a small town in that state. Men outnumber woman five to one. And the woman there are? They mostly make their own dresses.
So Nell finds a talent for making chaps. The cowboys LOVE THEM. And she HATES making them but she has to make a living and she is really making a lot of money. And a girl has to eat. But she is quite open at least with her good friends, about what a weird and unhappy turn her life has taken. She's almost the richest person in town. The cowboys are willing to wait as long as necessary and pay what she considers an exorbitant price for the chaps. They even bring her tanned deer hides to help her provide the leather,
There is no escape for Nell and her little industry.
One of the heroes, the guy from book #3 thinks to himself that he was considering asking Nell to make him a pair of chaps, but he was kind of afraid.
But Nell's deceased husband was a lawman. Nell knows a lot of things about the law and investigating crimes that no one else seems to know.
When the current Justice of the Peace moves away, the sheriff thinks Nell, who's been helping him investigate a series of murders by the notorious DeadEye Gang, puts her name out and she's chosen.
Now Nell's got an unruly town, some of which want a MAN to have the job...most of which want her to marry them...and many of whom want her to make them a pair of chaps.
Her life is annoying.
Except for the homesteader who moves to town with three half-grown girls and he, as a widower, needs help. He needs dresses. And there's a lot he doesn't know, like he shouldn't chop their hair off short and the girls actually need to learn to sew, which he can't teach them.
Nell to the rescue.
She wants the girls. But she had a bad first marriage and wants no part of a second. But she does want those girls. And Brand Nolte is a fine man, certainly not mean like her first husband. And now his girls might be in danger because one of them saw something she shouldn't have, related to that gang of stage coach robbers.
What's a woman to do, huh?
The Laws of Attraction. coming in June.
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Widowed seamstress Nell Armstrong finds solace in helping widower Brand Nolte's daughters learn to sew.
But she's more than a seamstress, and her investigative skills from her late lawman husband come critical when a robbery survivor arrives in town.
As danger encroaches from all sides, Nell and Brand must discover why there appears to be a bull's-eye on their backs.