I Miss My Pa The Most! Book #19

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I Miss My Pa The Most! © 2015 by Raymond Cook is a 381 page story about Christopher and Shannon Rose O’Shea who lived in Marble, Colorado in 1898. The couple have a daughter, Emma, aged eight. After a stove pipe fire erupts downstairs everyone must escape out a small cabin window onto a roof and jump down. Shannon suffers burns to the side of her head, cheek, neck and right arm. Christopher dies in the fire and she watches in despair as their cabin and barn burn to the ground clutching her daughter.

Emma is devastated over the loss of her father. Shannon must find someone to take her and her daughter in as winter approaches. She and her Emma are taken in by their good friend Cheryl Liley. It takes months for Shannon to heal from her burns however, accepting the loss of the man she loved and the father of Emma will take longer. She feels that no man will ever want to marry her now and that she’ll have to raise her daughter alone.

When spring arrives, Shannon remembers that her husband has an older brother, Lance in Garnet, Montana. He agrees to take her and her child in. With the help of the towns Parson, Thomas O’Malley, townsfolk’s raise the funds needed to help get Shannon and Emma to Montana. But the last leg of her journey won’t be easy, to say the least.

Indians, grizzly bear, wolves, highwaymen and a rancher who betrays her will whittle away at the last bit of hope Shannon has for them to reach Garnet alive. But to her dismay when she finally reaches the town, she learns her husband’s brother, Lance died in a mine cave-in. Now they’re broke and camped at the edge of town and believe there’s no hope left.

But the town’s Reverend talks to Kenneth Buchanan, a farmer who agrees to take her and her Emma into his home. But the women of Garnet don’t like the fact they’re living together and they attack her. So to keep the peace, the reverend marries the couple, ‘out of convenience.’ Can Kenneth and Shannon live under the same roof married but just friends or will he see beyond her scars and see the love she has to give him? And what about Emma? Will she finally bond to Kenneth and call him pa?