The Perfect Homestead Bride by Linda Hubalek

Author Linda Hubalek

Hello everyone! I’m Linda Hubalek and although I written books about pioneer women for a couple of decades, this is my first time working with Prairie Rose Publications, and the first time posting on the PRP blog. 

My story The Perfect Homestead Bride will be in PRP’s new book, Lassoing a Groom, an anthology of six new stories from six award winning authors.

First here’s a little bit about me and my writing career.

While growing up, I always planned to be a farmer, like my parents and European ancestors who homesteaded the Kansas prairie over a century ago. But marrying an engineer changed my plans—and my state of residence for a few decades.

To ease the homesickness for soil and family, I wrote stories about the pioneer women that homestead my family farms in Kansas. What resulted is four book series, Butter in the Well, Trail of Thread, Planting Dreams, and the Kansas Quilter. These series combine facts, fiction, photos and maps to give readers an intimate glimpse of life in the 1800's.

Another move in the mid 1990’s brought us back to central Kansas. We bought farm land, planted it back to prairie and stocked it with bison. This finally fulfilled my goal of connecting to the land much the same way my ancestors would have seen it when they first arrived in Kansas.

My passion for the frontier past has drawn me into writing a new western romance series featuring Kansas’ rough and rugged cattle town days and the women that lived in those times.

I welcome reader’s comments and can be contacted through linda@lindahubalek.com. My book descriptions and how to order them are on my website or Amazon.

Here’s a summary of The Perfect Homestead Bride, plus the start of the story.

Gussie Hamner paid cash for the abandoned Kansas prairie homestead near Ellsworth, Kansas with winnings her horse Nutcracker won against cowboys coming off the cattle trails. She plans to raise horses on her ranch, but disturbing happenings around the place and with her animals cause Gussie to worry about the safety of all that is dear to her.

Noah Wilerson left his sod house in Kansas to travel to Illinois, planning to marry and bring his sweetheart back to his new homestead. After finding his intended already married, Noah travels home to find it’s been taken over by a horsewoman in trousers.

Pushed together by well-meaning family, Gussie and Noah must work together to finish the homestead he started, but she bought to make into a perfect home and ranch for the future family she’s been dreaming of.  But danger lurking from the past may sabotage their work and lives now—and in the future.

Here’s the start of The Perfect Homestead Bride to whet your appetite.

This was the second time Noah Wilerson had seen that thick blonde braid.

The first time he saw that hair was three months ago in early May when he was at the station, waiting for the train to take him to Illinois. A bunch of cowboys had finished the long trail drive up from Texas and were celebrating with a horse race. After getting the worked-up men and horses lined up halfway straight across Main Street, someone fired a gun into the air and the group stormed down the street, racing out of Ellsworth at a neck-breaking speed.

The group raced out in a cloud of dust to a certain point marked in the prairie and turned to gallop back to the finish line, which happened to be in front of the depot, right where Noah stood on the boardwalk. A striking palomino paint mount moved out of the oncoming dust to claim the lead and finish first.

The slender rider wore his wide-brimmed hat low and tight on his head and had a red bandana over his mouth to keep from eating dust on the run. Once the horse slowed down and the rider turned his mount around, they pranced back to the finish line and collected the $100 cash from the man in charge of holding prize money.

The rider pulled down the scarf, ripped the hat off to wave in the air and gave a very feminine whooping holler. That’s when Noah—and everyone else—saw the thick, blonde, two-foot braid flipping out of her hat and down her back.

That caused uproar when the other riders realized a woman had bested them out of the race money. A couple of riders jumped off their horses and tried to tear the female down from her mount, but the gelding wouldn’t let anyone touch it, or his rider. The officials decided the woman had won the race fair and square, so she loped out of town with the money.

Now, three months later, he was back from his unsuccessful trip, and that same tall female with the braid had a rifle trained on his head. She looked like she could shoot just about as well as she could ride that palomino paint horse. The only trouble was, she was standing on the porch of his house.

Noah stared at her, hoping she’d relax her stance and lower the rifle. She was a tall woman, probably only a few inches shorter than his six-foot height. Both times he’d seen the woman, who looked to be in her early twenties, she’d had on a wide-brimmed hat to shade her fair skin.

Neither the woman—dressed in men’s trousers—nor the gun wavered a quarter of an inch when she yelled, “State your business, mister, or turn around and leave!”

Noah stood there, dumbfounded, for a minute. He didn’t think he needed to yell, “Hello the house,” since it was his own place.

—Excerpt from The Perfect Homestead Bride © 2014 by Linda Hubalek.

What to find out what happens next? Be sure to read this story and five more in the new Lassoing a Groom coming out this Tuesday!

For more information on this and other books coming from Prairie Rose Publications, visit their website, www.PrairieRosePublications.com. 

For information on Linda Hubalek's books go to www.ButterfieldBooks.com.