Prairie Wife

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No mother should have to bury her child Amy Shelby had learned this sorrow well. Her heart had gone into the ground a year ago along with her boy's tiny casket. And not even her husband, Jesse, wrestling the same pain, could resurrect any hope in her. Jesse Shelby mourned two losses—his baby son and his openhearted bride, for when their child died, Amy retreated behind a wall of grief as wide as the Nebraska prairie. But could a chance for a new family heal their wounded marriage—and guide them back to the comfort of each other's arms?

Splash!... That's me, Matilda Anne! That's me falling plump into the pool of matrimony before I've had time to fall in love! And oh, Matilda Anne, Matilda Anne, I've got to talk to you! You may be six thousand miles away, but still you've got to be my safety-valve. I'd blow up and explode if I didn't express myself to some one. For it's so lonesome out here I could go and commune with the gophers. This isn't a twenty-part letter, my dear, and it isn't a diary. It's the coral ring I'm cutting my teeth of desolation on. For, every so long, I've simply got to sit down and talk to some one, or I'd go mad, clean, stark, staring mad, and bite the tops off the sweet-grass! It may even happen this will never be sent to you. But I like to think of you reading it, some day, page by page, when I'm fat and forty, or, what's more likely, when Duncan has me chained to a corral-post or finally shut up in a padded cell. For you were the one who was closest to me in the old days, Matilda Anne, and when I was in trouble you were always the staff on which I leaned, the calm-eyed Tillie-on-the-spot who never seemed to fail me! And I think you will understand.

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A widowed father of two bound to a wheelchair and a barren widow looking for a place to stay might discover that despite one's imperfections, love is possible. *********** When her husband died, Deanne Grayson didn’t shed a tear. She did, however, worry that his death meant she’d have to return to her hometown in Kentucky. Fortunately, she stumbles upon an ad in the paper from a man in Lincoln, Nebraska who is interviewing for a wife. Widower Bill Harvey is in need of a wife to help him run his general store. Plus, it would be nice to have help raising his two young children. But being confined to a wheelchair doesn’t exactly make him confident when it comes to a more intimate union with a woman. So when Deanne comes in for an interview, he makes a stipulation. He’ll marry her, but they won’t be consummating the marriage. So the marriage will be more of a partnership than a romance. A marriage of convenience suits Deanne just fine. She’s not looking for love. As long as she doesn’t have to return to her hometown, she’ll be happy. It’s not long before Bill starts to have desires he put behind him after the accident that confined him to a wheelchair. Yes, it was his decision to treat their marriage like a partnership, but after he gets to know her, he starts to want more. Exactly how can he, someone who is only half a man, expect a woman to want a real marriage with him?