High School history teacher Emma Carlyle thought she’d found the man of her dreams. He turned out to be a married jerk who left her pregnant, alone and out of a job. Raised by an alcoholic mother, Emma doesn’t feel she has what it takes to be a parent. She’s arranged to give her unborn baby up for adoption. Meanwhile, as her due date nears, she’s holed up in her tiny house in Lander, Wyoming, struggling to finish her master’s thesis.
To say that Emma’s a little short on Christmas spirit would be a gross understatement.
The subject of Emma’s thesis, legendary Wyoming lawman J.D. McNulty, died in 1872, shot in a senseless gunfight over a card game. Glory Gulch, where J.D. met his end, is a ghost town now, buried in winter snow. But the road is open to South Pass City, where J.D.’s body was taken for burial. Ignoring the uncertain winter weather and the fact that it’s Christmas Eve, Emma decides to drive there and visit a bookstore, whose owner is an expert on all things J.D.
Keep in mind here that Emma’s in a vulnerable state. She’s nine months pregnant, and she’s been hurt by the father of her child. Months of researching J.D., whose photograph would give any woman heart palpitations (imagine a younger Tom Selleck), have left her with a heavy duty crush on the man – who died more than a hundred years ago.
Glory Gulch, in 1871, is already well on its way to becoming a ghost town. The once-promising gold strike has played out, and most of the cabins have been torn down for firewood. For the few hardy souls who remain, the heart of the community is the Laughing Lady Saloon, where the flamboyant Mame and her three downtrodden working girls provide what little social life the place has to offer.
The most prominent citizen lives in an isolated mountain cabin above Glory Gulch. Like the town, J.D. McNulty has seen better days. At 44, he’s run down and burned out, with too many bad memories and too many regrets. All he wants is to live out his life in peace, knowing that sooner or later some hot young gunslinger will show up and put an end to it all. (The book’s cover blew me away when I saw it – that’s J.D.’s cabin!)
Tonight, all J.D. wants to do is read a good book, smoke a cheroot, get a little drunk and forget that there’s any such thing as Christmas. But fate has different plans for him. He’s just getting settled when he hears a furious pounding on his door...
If you haven’t read the excerpt yet, now might be a good time. I’ve chosen the scene where Emma wakes up in the past, finds her way to J.D.’s cabin, and these two lost souls finally meet, as they were meant to. But the love that grows between them is bittersweet. Emma knows that J.D.’s date with death is mere weeks away. She’s even seen the famous photograph of J.D. laid out in his coffin, dressed for burial.
Can she change history to save the man she loves? Does she have the power, or even the right? That’s the question CHRISTMAS MOON asks. I hope you’ll like my answer.
Happy Reading,
Elizabeth
READ AN EXCERP
When she opened her eyes the sky was dark. She was lying on her back, cradled by snow and cushioned by her down parka. Tiny crystals of ice drifted onto her face. Dazed and chilled, she began moving her fingers, then her arms and legs. Slowly the memory returned—the storm, the car, the fall...
The baby!
Emma sat bolt upright. Her lips moved in silent prayer as she clasped her belly. An eternity seemed to pass before she felt a tentative push, then a spunky little kick. Dizzy with relief, she staggered to her feet. She was sore and stiff, but aside from a tender lump on the back of her head, she didn’t seem to be hurt.
A full moon shone through the clouds, flooding the landscape with light. Looking up, Emma could see the slope where she’d fallen. It was steep, but not so steep that she couldn’t get back to the road. Jamming her boots into the snow, she began to climb.
“Don’t worry, little one, we’ll be fine,” she murmured. “We’ll just get into the car and call 911. Then we can keep warm and munch cookies while we wait for the Search and Rescue hunks to show up. How does that sound for a way to spend Christmas Eve? Just you and—”
Emma’s words died in her throat as her eyes came level with the road. There was no sign of the car—not even tire tracks to show where it had been.
Shaking, she sank onto a snow-covered rock. She’d left the car keys in the ignition and her purse, with her cell phone inside, on the seat. Clearly, the temptation had been too much for some passer-by. Now she was in real trouble.
Her eyes scanned the moonlit terrain. From where she sat, the road seemed to disappear into a wooded canyon. Wherever it led, she had little choice except to follow it. It might be her only hope of finding shelter.
By the time she reached the mouth of the canyon it was snowing again. The wind had risen to a howl, blasting snowflakes into her face. Head down, Emma trudged through the stinging blizzard. Once, then again, she stumbled to her knees. Reeling with effort, she pushed on. She knew the danger. If she stopped to rest, she and her baby could freeze.
She had just fallen a third time when she saw the light. It was little more than a glimmer through the bare aspens, but even when Emma rubbed her eyes the light remained. She staggered toward it.
As the trees thinned out she saw a log cabin with a tall stone chimney. Soft amber lamplight glowed faintly through a tiny glass-paned window. Something about the place—the ramshackle slope of the roof, the off-kilter set of the door, looked familiar. Emma had the vague feeling she’d seen it before, but she was too exhausted to remember where or when.
On the wide, covered porch, she hesitated, working her hands out of her pockets. Just because she’d found the cabin, that didn’t mean she was safe. Anybody could be on the other side of that door—maybe the very people who’d stolen her car. She could be taking a dangerous chance, but she’d run out of options. It was knock or freeze.
Her eyes fell on a pile of kindling next to the door. Choosing a long, stout stick she banged it on the door with all her strength. From inside the cabin she heard a crash and the sound of a male voice cursing. Heavy footsteps lumbered across the wooden floor. A bolt slid back and the door burst open, flooding the porch with lamplight.
Emma found herself staring up the barrel of a nasty-looking Colt revolver. But it wasn’t the gun that made her gasp. It was the man holding it.
Dressed in nothing but faded red long johns and riding boots, he was tall and rawboned. An evil-looking black cheroot was jammed into one corner of his scowling mouth. The bloodshot eyes that glared down at Emma from beneath a mop of dark, silvered hair were as blue as an October sky.
“Who in holy hellfire are you, lady, and what in do you want?” he growled.
Heaven save her, he looked exactly like J.D. McNulty.
* * * * * * *
The woman on J.D.’s porch looked as if she’d just staggered out of a nightmare. She was wild-eyed and tarnally spooked, gripping a stick of kindling as if she wanted to bash in his face. The fact that she was dressed like some kind of Chinaman, in sagging black trousers and an enormous, puffy green silk coat, only added to J.D.’s befuddlement. What lunatic asylum had this female escaped from?
“Easy, now, lady.” J.D. kept the Colt leveled at her collar bone, but mostly for show. “Put that stick down, and I’ll take my itchy finger off this trigger.”
Slowly and shakily she lowered her arm. He could see now that she was half-dead from cold and exhaustion. Her lips were the color of laundry bluing and her hair was plastered around her face in frozen strings. She was swaying on her feet like a drunkard.
J.D. cursed under his breath. He’d been looking forward to a peaceful night with his books, the old tomcat and a bottle of the finest rotgut whiskey in Glory Gulch. Maybe if he drank enough of the stuff, he might even forget it was Christmas Eve.
Now his plans were blown to hell. He wouldn’t have minded female company of the soft and willing variety. But this woman didn’t strike him as the sporting kind, and it appeared he was stuck with her. The devil himself wouldn’t close the door and leave her outside to freeze.
Muttering words unfit for a lady’s ears, he eased off the hammer and laid the Colt on the bookshelf. “Well don’t just stand there. Come on inside. And don’t expect any apologies for my state of undress. I wasn’t expecting company.”
The kindling stick clattered to the porch as she dragged herself across the threshold. She was tall for a woman, with a body that appeared too stout for her heart-shaped face. But maybe that was because of the coat. Her eyes, when she looked up at him, were the warm, translucent brown of sarsaparilla on a sunny day. They were staring at him as if she’d just seen Abraham Lincoln’s ghost.
Her chilled lips worked in an effort to speak. “Where...am I?”
J.D. bolted the door behind her. “Glory Gulch, Wyoming. The upper edge of it, at least. Main part of town’s further down the canyon.”
“Glory Gulch?” Her eyes widened. “People are living here?”
“A few score, maybe, most of us down on our luck. Not like the old days before the gold played out.” J.D. bit down hard on his cheroot as a new thought struck him. “Any other folks out there with you? Any of your family lost in the storm?” He didn’t relish searching in a blizzard but if there were other travelers with the woman, he’d rather find them alive tonight than dead tomorrow.
Distrust flickered across her face, and he realized she’d misread him. “Oh, there’ll be plenty of people looking for me by morning—police on snowmobiles, maybe even a helicopter or two. As long as they find me safe, there’ll be no trouble for you.”
J.D. shook his head. The woman was touched for sure. “You’re talking gibberish, lady. Sit down and have a whiskey. Maybe it’ll bring you around.”
He turned toward the hearth, where he’d set the jug next to the cat’s favorite warming spot. She stopped him with a touch on his arm. Her fingers were like icicles through his sleeve.
“Tell me one thing.” She was staring up at him, her wild, scared doe’s eyes searching his face. “Who are you? What’s your name?”
“McNulty, for whatever it’s worth to you. J.D. McNulty.”
Her eyes widened for an instant. Then the pupils rolled back in her head and she swayed to one side. J.D. lunged, catching her as she went down in a dead faint.
She was heftier than he’d expected, and her belly, where it pressed his arm, felt as round and solid as a brood mare’s. Only then did it dawn on J.D. that under her puffy coat, the lady had company. She was in a family way, and damned near ready to deliver.
A cold knot clenched in J.D.’s gut, jerking tight. Lord almighty, not that. Anything but that!
