Romance Sweet Reads: CALLI by Author Donna Schlachter **Book Birthday** **Prairie Roses Collection**

Welcome back to Romance Sweet Reads. Today, we'll be featuring the second book in this year's Prairie Roses Collection, CALLI, by Author Donna Schlachter.

Calli works as a nurse with the US Army at Fort Bridger, Wyoming in 1880. When a wagon train full of discouraged emigrants passes through on its way east, a pregnant widow delivers her baby then dies.

Bradley Wilson, leading this train, has few options. He asks Calli to travel with them until they find a relative to take the child in St. Joe, Missouri. Calli, drawn to both this dark and quiet man and the child, resists. But when she disappears, he wonders if she’s run away or been kidnapped.

Can these two put their pasts behind them and move into a new future together? Or will Calli insist on having things her own way?

CALLI, Prairie Roses Collection, Book 13, is available on Kindle Unlimited

April 30th, 1870
Twenty miles west of Fort Bridger, Wyoming Territory

Bradley Wilson shielded his eyes from the burning sun and surveyed the trail ahead, thankful to be out of the wagon and stretching his legs. A cloud of dust as big as Kansas, kicked up by the prairie schooners ahead of him, blotted out whatever lay in that direction. Sweat dribbled down the center of his back. He longed to scratch, but knew the action wouldn’t satisfy. Instead, he yanked a wrinkled ball of calico from his shirt pocket and swiped at his face. How a body could sweat so much in a land so empty of water was beyond him.

He wished he could guzzle the rest of his day’s ration. Or pour it over his head to cool his fevered brain. But neither would satisfy more than a second and a half. Wasting the precious commodity would haunt him.

Maybe he was too good for his own good.

Isn’t that what those who abandoned the wagon train had said? Right before they broke off on their own, forging ahead instead of waiting for Joe Collins to die? Two weeks it took. Fourteen days of listening to the man keen and holler night and day. And no amount of laudanum eased the pain of his broken back. Of his insides in knots, sewn back into place as best as his wife could do.

Who knew a horse could drag the human body for more’n three miles, and that person still survive? Even if for only a fortnight.

And Miz Collins, ready to drop her first young’un any minute.

Bradley shook his head and double-stepped ahead of his oxen. No, siree. Joe Collins was too good for this world. Along with his widow, Elspeth.

His oxen continued following the team ahead as if he held the leads. He patted the muzzle of the one nearest him, Beau. The off-side lead, Bob, snorted.

“I know. You’re jealous. I’ll get you soon.”

The pair, purchased in St. Joseph, Missouri two years prior, had carried him westward. Away from memories of the war. From sweet Millicent. And their babe. Both buried on a hill under a tree.

But running wasn’t the answer. As he now understood. And so he headed east, passing wagon trains of the hopeful and the excited and the naïve every day. Them heading west, toward the new life he’d sought but never found.

The newly elected train leader, Dusty Moore, rode up on a dun mare. “We’ll camp out here tonight. Cold supper. No point in letting the Shoshone know we’re here.”

Bradley looked up at the man, who never deigned to dismount. To speak at eye level. To treat a man as his equal. “I think they already know.”

Dusty’s brow pulled down. “Huh?”

Bradley pointed to the palisades towering over the canyon they traveled through. “I see at least forty braves right there.” He swept a hand to include the path they’d driven today. “All day long. Not quite in full sight. But plain enough if a body was looking.”

The leader’s skin paled beneath his wind and sunburned skin. He yanked his horse’s head around to move on to the next wagon. “Long as they stay up there.” He spat a wad of tobacco juice on the ground within inches of Bradley’s boots. “Too scared to come down here.”

No, more likely figuring out how to pick us off one by one. Or follow in our path to see what we’re leaving behind.

Despite his dire warnings to the train members when they left Oregon City—when was that? The middle of March? Felt a lifetime ago—not to pack anything they wouldn’t use on the trail, folks still insisted on keeping useless things such as the pedal organ that was tossed aside at the first river crossing. He’d never forget the sight of the passel of kids heading west who swarmed the musical instrument, several pounding the keys while the little ones worked the pedals. The racket roused a flock of crows, sending them into the skies, complaining about the disruption of their afternoon nap.

Or the silver tea set, perched carefully on a rock, every piece in its place, sunshine glinting off the recently polished metal.

Well, nobody in their right mind would pick that up and carry it to Oregon. Although that family apparently had originally. He shook his head and kicked at a clod of dirt. No accounting for some folks’ common sense.

Donna is a Canadian by birth, an American by choice. She lives in Denver, Colorado with her husband Patrick. She pens historical suspense, while her alter-ego, Leeann Betts, writes contemporary suspense.

Donna and Leeann have authored more than 40 published novels and novellas, devotionals, and books on writing. She judges in several writing contests; ghostwrites; edits; facilitates a critique group; and teaches at writing conferences and in online forums. She is proud to be represented by Terrie Wolf of AKA Literary.

Donna's Website ~ Facebook ~ Amazon Author Page ~ BookBub