High Country Bride by Linda Lael Miller
Emmaline decides in a moment of boredom to put on one of her Aunt Becky’s fancy dresses and mingle with the guests in Becky’s brothel. She’s tired of being prim and proper and is excited to catch a cowboy’s eyes. Once Holt figures out she is out of her league and too drunk to care, he puts Emmaliner in bed to keep her from the rest of the customers and because he feels sorry for a girl he assumes is desperate for funds, leaves a stack of gold coins on the nightstand. Emmaline wakes up the next morning and assumes the worst considering she’s stripped to her unmentionables and money was left behind. Aunt Becky gets the same impression and Emmaline decides to escape the humiliation and wrath of her aunt by following up on an ad in the Kansas City newspaper asking for brides to go out west. Meanwhile back on the ranch, the Triple M ranch in wild Arizona that is, 75 year old Angus McKettrick is tired of waiting for his three sons to quit carousing, womanizing and playing cards. He announces that instead of dividing up his estate three ways, he’s going to give it all to the first son to marry and produce a child. Rafe, the oldest, immediately sends off for a mail order bride while the other two devise their own plans. Despite the fact that Emmaline was bought and paid for, she is discouraged that her new husband isn’t concerned with romance and looks on their marriage as a business partnership. She decides to make it work, besides, she thinks she might already be pregnant by that cowboy from back home. Their relationship lurches along, and they seem to be making headway when a new cowboy arrives in town. It seems Emmaline isn’t the only person on the Triple M with a secret past, old Angus plum forgot that he left his son from a first marriage with the baby’s mother’s family after she got sick and died. Holt has come to decide if the McKettricks deserve to be part of his family and is shocked to see that little hussy from Kansas married to his half brother just months after he left her at the brothel. On top of that, Emmaline’s Aunt Becky sells off the brothel and moves to Indian Rock to make sure her precious girl is okay. It takes some dire circumstances, but Miller pulls the McKettrick clan together in the end for a real wedding for Rafe and Emmaline. One of Miller’s talents is painting the picture of a place and the Arizona of that time and space is magnificent and wild.