Isabella Trueblood made history reuniting people torn apart by war and an epidemic. Now, generations later, Lily and Dylan Garrett carry on her work with their agency, Finders Keepers. Circumstances may have changed, but the goal remains the same.
Lost
Her first and only love. Chelsea Jensen had no idea her father had been to blame for her heartbreak when Jack Shane disappeared from the Wishing Tree Ranch. Ten years later, the betrayal still burned.
Found
A check. A canceled check that explained everything. Or almost. Now she knew why heâd left her. But she didnât know if heâd loved her. Had she just been too young and too blind to see the truth? She was determined to track Jack downâwherever he wasâand find out!
âI found the check my father tried to give you,â Chelsea said, her voice barely a whisper.
âSo that was it.â Jack felt his jaw tighten.
âI didnât know, Jack.â
He looked away, the pain fresh as a new wound, past her to the sports car parked by the chutes. Her sports car. He smiled bitterly. For a moment, just looking at her, listening to her, being so close to her, heâd forgotten. Now he looked from the car to her, recalling only too well everything heâd once felt for herâand all the reasons they had been wrong for each other.
âIf youâd just told me,â she said.
How many times had he questioned that decision? How many times had he thought about going back to try to straighten things out? But the memory of her father coming out that morning to the corrals with the check, the look in Ryder Jensenâs eyes, the accusations, the contemptâall had kept him moving on down the road.
âIt wouldnât have made a difference,â he said.
âI donât believe it.â
He turned away. He definitely didnât need this.
âJack.â
It came out a whisper, so familiar and so intimate, he stopped in his tracks, unable not to remember that soft sound, the feel of her breath on his skin.â¦
âBelieve it,â he said, walking away from her, just as he had ten years ago.
Dear Reader,
I grew up on old Westerns, spending many a Saturday with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, riding the range and rootinâ for the good guys. Is it any wonder, after spending part of my youth in Texas and the rest in Montana, that I love cowboysâand rodeos?
They say that rodeo is a reaffirmation of the Old West, a celebration of life and a lifestyle that has all but passed away.
Thatâs why I loved writing this book as part of the Trueblood, Texas series. I like to believe that somewhere in Texas right now Chelsea and Jack and their descendants are keeping the cowboy way of life alive. A life based on a love for the landâand each other.
B.J. Daniels
THE TRUEBLOOD LEGACY
THE YEAR WAS 1918, and the Great War in Europe still raged, but Esau Porter was heading home to Texas.
The young sergeant arrived at his parentsâ ranch northwest of San Antonio on a Sunday night, only the celebration didnât go off as planned. Most of the townsfolk of Carmelita had come out to welcome Esau home, but when they saw the sorry condition of the boy, they gave their respects quickly and left.
The fever got so bad so fast that Mrs. Porter hardly knew what to do. By Monday night, before the doctor from San Antonio made it into town, Esau was dead.
The Porter family grieved. How could their son have survived the German peril, only to burn up and die in his own bed? It wasnât much of a surprise when Mrs. Porter took to her bed on Wednesday. But it was a hell of a shock when half the residents of Carmelita came down with the horrible illness. House after house was hit by death, and all the townspeople could do was pray for salvation.
None came. By the end of the year, over one hundred souls had perished. The influenza virus took those in the prime of life, leaving behind an unprecedented number of orphans. And the virus knew no boundaries. By the time the threat had passed, more than thirty-seven million people had succumbed worldwide.
But in one house, there was still hope.
Isabella Trueblood had come to Carmelita in the late 1800s with her father, blacksmith Saul Trueblood, and her mother, Teresa Collier Trueblood. The family had traveled from Indiana, leaving their Quaker roots behind.
Young Isabella grew up to be an intelligent woman who had a gift for healing and storytelling. Her dreams centered on the boy next door, Foster Carter, the son of Chester and Grace.
Just before the bad times came in 1918, Foster asked Isabella to be his wife, and the future of the Carter spread was secured. It was a happy union, and the future looked bright for the young couple.
Two years later, not one of their relatives was alive. How the young couple had survived was a miracle. And during the epidemic, Isabella and Foster had taken in more than twenty-two orphaned children from all over the county. They fed them, clothed them, taught them as if they were blood kin.
Then Isabella became pregnant, but there were complications. Love for her handsome son, Josiah, born in 1920, wasnât enough to stop her from growing weaker by the day. Knowing she couldnât leave her husband to tend to all the children if she died, she set out to find families for each one of her orphaned charges.