Always Read online

  Jessie Rose Case

  Always

  A Western Romantic Saga

  Dedication;

  For my father, who loved a western.

  I miss you every day ….

  A word from the Author.

  Hello, I'm Jessie and I thank you for buying this book! I know you did not have to. There are so many choices out there. It's a wonderful feeling knowing that someone else will enjoy one of my stories. And for me, it's about telling a story that I'd like to read myself.

  I am not caught up in POV or literary genius. It's simply not me or my style and I will never be that person, so I apologize to all those who are focused on the POV and the genius of literacy. I envy those that are.

  On the days where my pain and meds stop my thinking processes, writing these books have been my lifeline. It reminds me that I still have the ability to rise to the challenge and that I refuse to go quietly into the night.

  But, I'm a person just like you, who wants to bring some passion into my life and yours, and put a good story out there that's hard to put down, that brings some escapism, sexy fun and pleasure into your reading. We all love a bit of that!

  And, I hope I achieve that for you in this book. I sincerely hope you enjoy it so much that you want to look out for the next in the series. (Coming soon) And if I'm lucky, you will have had such a good time, you'll recommend it to your friends and I thank you kindly.

  My very best wishes to you and yours. Jessie x

  About the Author;

  Jessie, (pseudonym) is married with sadly no children but 3 wonderful dogs that fill her life with much laughter, joy, and love. She is a ‘second mother’ to her foster children, now grown with children of their own who call her grandma and her husband’s two children and her nephews whom she accepts, she spoils rotten.

  Having been a 30-year career social worker. Now retired due to ill health. And many years of supporting services across all sectors and leading several teams, Jessie has now turned her attention to another love of her life, books.

  In a career that required the ability to write court paperwork, lengthy reports, create protocols and procedures, and having been published in a medical journal for a study on addiction, Jessie is now concentrating on producing stories she would love to read and buy herself. When not busy on her laptop you will find her cooking, reading her favorite authors or swimming in the sun.

  She hopes you can join her on the adventure….

  Contact Jessie here to join her mailing list ….

  https://www.facebook.com/Jessie-Rose-Case-270737356695855/

  Always

  Copyright October 2016

  All Rights Reserved. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal, except for the case of brief quotations in reviews and articles.

  Criminal copyright infringement is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is coincidental.

  Other Books By the Author

  The Awaking

  (A Bataari New World Sci-fi Alien Romantic saga

  Book 1)

  The Beckoning

  (A Bataari New World Sci-Fi Alien Romantic Saga

  Book 2)

  A Pairing

  (A Bataari New World Sci-Fi Alien Romantic Saga

  Book 3)

  Arturo

  (A Vampire Romantic Novel Book 1 House Arturo)

  Alex

  (A Vampire Romantic Novel Book 2 House Arturo)

  Blane

  (A Vampire Romantic Novel Book 3 House Arturo)

  Evangeline

  (A Vampire Romantic Novel Book 4 House Arturo)

  GALACTIC CYBORG HEAT SERIES

  RAGE Book 1

  DARK Book 2

  PAIN Book 3

  ANGR Book 4

  BLAZ Book 5

  KANE Book 6

  7 - 14

  The Covenant

  Book 1 – 3

  Masters of the Demon Realm

  Book 1

  Forward

  1879. Any place in the world, a difficult time in history. In the American West. Tough. Harsh. Dangerous. Unpredictable.

  1879. American west. For a European woman. Deadly. Vulnerable. Risky.

  1879. American west. For the native American. The beginning of the end of an era.

  Always

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  Early Spring 1879

  The view from the dust covered window continued to race by in rhythm with the horses. It was strange how much the stagecoach had become home to Elizabeth over the past 5 days, with the train only going as far West as Phoenix, she’d had no choice but to change.

  The coach stopped twice a day for food, to change the horses and to pick up and drop off travellers, allow people to stretch and toilet and pick up any mail. Sometimes the stage had stopped overnight. The further West it went, the stranger the stop station people were, when they found her traveling alone. Elizabeth recalled smiling, and not always in the best of company.

  But she wasn’t stupid. She had her MAS Modele six shot revolver in her pocket. Her father would not be happy she had made this journey alone and a sigh slipped from her lips as she had the same thought again. The rocking motion of the coach as it headed home and the incessant dust, working its way, she thought, running her finger around the collar of her dress, into every corner of her being. She couldn’t wait to get out of these clothes. Elizabeth, not for the first time, reconsidered the rashness of her actions.

  Should she really have come? Would her uncle welcome her? Should she have stayed East? It had been 7 years and he had not written to bring her back. Always telling her how lucky she was being in the East. How things at home were the same and nothing would compare to her experience of a city life. The more he wrote about it, the more Elizabeth became concerned and the more she needed to go home.

  The last letter had done it for her. There was talk of Red Wolf leading the tribe. Of needing a wife. Dull Knife anxious for the future of the nation. The animals and ranch hands, going about their business. White Dove and Anna. No mention of when she would be going back. Elizabeth frowned and again was unsure.

  “That’s a considerable frown for such a lovely lady.”

  Elizabeth turned to the older gentleman who had recently joined them. He looked kindly and someone’s grandfather she expected. “I’m sorry I do not remember your name.”

  “Mr. Wilson, Oklahoma mam, I was telling you earlier, I’m in trade?”

  “Arr yes, Mr. Wilson, you’ll forgive me, it’s been a long and tiring journey and it’s hard to concentrate on anything.”

  “Quite right Ms, quite right – and a journey for not one so young and on her own, if you will forgive me for saying.” Mr. Wilson smiled. “But not long now I understand, we should be in Cheyanne Junction tomorrow.”

  “Yes, indeed Mr. Wilson. But I am only going as far as Brownsville. I am nearly home.” Replied Elizabeth with another frown.

  “Does that not please you Ms?” Elizabeth gave a strained smile.

  “Yes and no Mr. Wilson, I’m hoping my Uncle will be as happy to see me, as I will too see him.” Elizabeth placed her hands in her lap and looked up. “It’s been more seven years since he sent me East to live with my great Aunt, he’s not exactly expecting me.” Elizabeth told him with a knowing un
derstated smile

  “Oh I see Ms, well I’m sure, he will be delighted.” Elizabeth gave another resigned smile and thought. ‘I hope so.’ New York with all its attractions was not for her. The young men calling, the balls, it was all so …..false. Such polite airs and graces for what? It felt like such useless air.

  ‘If it hadn’t been for her interest in the family business’, she thought she would have gone mad. The other women didn’t get her. They expected her to be accomplished and pretty. She had money. Why did she want to soil her hands with working? That was for men, unless they were wealthy, and they did…… very little. It bored her. They bored her. They didn’t feel alive to her. Elizabeth tried not to roll her eyes remembering it and closed them instead. Lulled by the rocking of the carriage. She hoped her Aunt would forgive her. Sleep, she thought, maybe that will help…..

  Mr. Wilson smiled at the sleeping beauty, she was quite something, young he thought with her fresh clear complexion, a real beauty. He couldn’t think when he had last seen such colouring. Not blond not red but a captivating mixture of both and those eyes. The richest, deepest, sapphire blue that captivated you and no mistaking. But the clincher, he realised – was the fact that she had no idea of the effect, she was having on the men around her. He joined her in closing his eyes, his last thoughts as he drifted off. That Elizabeth, would break many a heart and hoped that this county, would not break her.

  Elizabeth kept her eyes closed. She’d tried but wasn’t sleeping. She hoped it at least stopped any further conversation. She had said more in one sentence than she had in many days. She really wasn’t up to talking about her life. They would never understand anyway she concluded. How could she explain the complexities of her life to anyone, not even her Aunt could understand it.

  Seven years ago Ben had told her at breakfast, she was going East to school to stay with her mother’s sister, Clara. The day before he’d come across her and Red Wolf. He was on his pony and she was aside sitting in front of him. He was holding her close and whispering in her ear about something. It was a childish thing, but it seemed to make up Ben’s mind.

  He told her she needed to be a young woman who could stand up in a man’s world and that world respect her. That she couldn’t do that, running around like a native.

  How she had hated that conversation. She’d shouted and argued till she was blue in the face. She’d stopped eating – well for a day at least, she smiled, and he had not relented. It broke her heart the day she’d left and the goodbyes she’d had to make. Her friends and her great family. Leaving was the most difficult thing she had ever had to do.

  Her thoughts turned back to Ben. Good, kind Ben. The older brother to her father. A man who had rejected ‘respectable’ life in his youth. Who had been a gunslinger and on the wrong side of the law for most of his younger days. A ‘reckless’ young man her uncle had told her. Luckily for Ben, nothing serious came of it, unlike so many others, her uncle had turned risky lawbreaker to law keeper before it was too late.

  And after the Indian attack, ……. her heart skipped a beat as it always did, when, unwillingly, it all came back to her….

  Even now, after all these years, she couldn’t remember it clearly. She wasn’t too sure if she ever really wanted to. Too young. Too scared. Too nightmarish. Or all just too fast for a frightened child, she guessed. She recalled the buggy ride and her excitement on their long journey into town. How handsome her father looked all dressed up in his Eastern finery and how pretty her mama was. They were not alone and some of the ranch hands with them. Her mama dressed in green silk. Elizabeth had loved that dress. She recalled the games she’d played with several of her father’s men, along the way.

  Then, out of nowhere, they came. Elizabeth remembered at first, thinking it was part of one of the games they were playing. She was gay, laughing and pointing out the men to her mama. That it was their Indians and men were playing dress up, painted and riding fast. Only they were not playing at all. Her mother screamed and called her father’s name. He whipped the horses up and the raced on. It seemed like a hundred screaming devils at once and quickly it turned deadly. The shooting. The smoke. The burning of gunpowder.

  Her mother’s fear as she clung to Elizabeth and her own. But mostly, she wished she could block out the screaming. She remembered it so vividly. Indian and American alike and the moments her mother and father were killed and the kindly ranch hand who at that point, had picked her up and rode like hell for the nearest farmstead. He had saved her life that day and she was thankful. It had been a war party. Crossing into their own Indian lands for a raid. A grudge or falling out most likely.

  Elizabeth had partial memories of the farmer and his wife and later, the journey home. Mainly they tell her, she had a fever and that’s why she couldn’t remember much at all. Elizabeth accepted it. She didn’t remember her arrival back at the Double T Bar. Or the many days spent in bed crying, refusing to eat or attend her parent’s funeral.

  What she did remember, was the first day of the rest of her life. Waking one morning, expecting the despair she had experienced every day since to hit her again. But when she opened her eyes she found Ben standing over her. A little greyer than she remembered. He’d bent down, held her close, wiped her tears and rocked her back to sleep. The next morning, she got up. She was 8 years old and orphaned.

  The days following were challenging for her. She tried to get into her old routine, but found it hard, her mama being so much a part of that. Everything she did reminded her of her pain. Elizabeth decided before the week was out, that she needed a new routine. Something that would not remind her of her pain. She’d gone looking for Ben.

  Looking out across the yard. She’d been reminded that the Double T, was a ranch larger than anyone else’s in the area.

  One her father had been most proud of. Coming from England with “Pennies” he’d said and turned it into thousands and not by false means. Having worked hard and been lucky in the gold mines.

  He’d headed West to continue his fortune. “Land.” He’d always said to her while sitting on his knee. “A man must have land.” And land he’d got. Hundreds and thousands of acres. It had been hard earnt. But her father never forgot how his own family had been treated by landowners. Thrown off and a country starving. He never forgot it and it influenced everything he did.

  Her father had been proud of his achievements. Some of the best land in the West he’d told her. Elizabeth recalled the bargain her father made to the local Indians. They had come looking to see who was on their land. He’d gone to speak with them along with a missionary. He’d spoken of how the wind blows and that it could not hold back the White man coming. He offered peace, to leave them alone and work for anyone who wished it. He also offered bounty. Goods and animals as a thank you for allowing him to share the land and he made a promise. No one goes hungry.

  Her father had spoken many times of the way his family had been ejected from their land in England by those with greater power. How he wanted to respect the land and the people on it. Wanted to thank them for sharing it and bring prosperity to all. They had not believed him at first. There had been skirmishes along the way with hands and Indians setting each other off. Quickly her father had wheedled those out and the Indians came to accept his words as truth.

  He was a man of conscience and principal, aware of the politics and the injustice of the native people. He had seen first-hand what those with power did. He saw how Indians were treated, the forced walks. The killing of a race and he had refused to be brought into it. He bought the land the Indians were on. They were protected within his boundary. No white man could make them do anything. He had used goodwill to share and return what he had and they respected him for it. Elizabeth remembered recalling how ironic, that it should be Indians to have killed him. But not the same Indians, no, never the same….

  Even now, she didn’t know how they knew it was the right time to come calling at the ranch. That she was up to seeing visitors. But she guess
ed one of the hands had told them and they did.

  It was as she was talking to Ben one morning that they or rather she, had visitors. Indian visitors. They rode across the grassland as they always did, coming from the North. At their head, was their chief, Dull Knife.

  He normally came alone with his warriors but this day, he came with his two sons, Red Wolf and Running Elk. It was unusual to see all three together in that way, she remembered. Running Elk was a few years younger than her, Red Wolf several years older and not normally with the warriors. But there they were this day and each of them, in ceremonial mourning dress she’d found out later. Elizabeth had been so touched to see them coming to see her. Not once did she fear them. Dull Knife was very protective of his family and she knew that from her father.

  Instinctively, Elizabeth had taken Bens hand and silently walked towards the main house and porch where she had seen her father many times, address the Indians. It had felt like a dream. She let go of Bens' hand and instinctively reached out to touch the bull whip her father hung on the porch post. It was mainly ornamental. A gift from his father-in-law on his marriage. But her father had kept it well-oiled, had carried it often and it brought him closer to her at that moment.