A Second Chance For A Redeeming Love (Western Historical Romance) Read online

  A Second Chance for a Redeeming Love

  STAND-ALONE NOVEL

  A Western Historical Romance Novel

  by

  Lydia Olson

  Copyright© 2019 by Lydia Olson

  All Rights Reserved.

  This book may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the publisher.

  In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher

  Table of Contents

  * * *

  Table of Contents

  Let’s connect!

  Letter from Lydia Olson

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  Ready to start your next Romance story?

  A Truce for Love

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Your Honest Review

  * * *

  Let’s connect!

  * * *

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  Letter from Lydia Olson

  * * *

  “There is no better place to heal a broken heart than on the back of a horse”

  This is my moto, this is how I grew up.

  My name is Lydia and when I am not baking cookies with my daughter or riding the bike with my son, I am a Western Historical Romance writer. It is my passion, my hobby and my career.

  After I received my BA in Psychology I realised that this would help me create believable characters. Characters that are based on real people. I want my readers to feel as if they have lived themselves in the West.

  Growing up myself in a ranch I have a lot of tales to share. Stories that will help you not escape reality, but rather navigate you through reality. You will feel what it would feel to go through situations that make your heart pound and your palms sweat. You will access the depths of someone else’s mind, you will open your selves to new experiences and different point of views.

  What do you say? Wanna take a vacation with me?

  Lots of hugs,

  Prologue

  Ana stood waiting patiently, her heart hammering against her chest in the same way it always did when she waited for the men to come back.

  The silence around her was almost deafening, the way that the heat seemed to swallow everything whole and make it almost impossible to just stand still and focus. Ana found herself shuddering despite the heat, something didn't feel right this time. It was different. As different as a robbery could feel to somebody who was so used to being part of the entire experience.

  As usual, Ana wasn't involved completely—she had been swept aside as though she were merely a piece of driftwood on open waters. But she didn't stand there alone.

  She was ready and waiting with the final two horses, ready to go at the sight of the other's signal. It was normally the job that she did with Tim. He would stand with her and the two of them could keep one another company.

  Timothy King held that kind of presence that made you feel safe in an instant; there was nothing to hide from him, he simply invited her to open up and feel comfortable.

  Ana didn’t like the fact that she'd been left to do this job on her own. She craved Tim's company and felt as though he couldn't come back any sooner.

  Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of waiting, shadows began to rise over the horizon; people were coming. Ana leapt to her feet and readied the horses, her nerves instantly sharpening and her mind focusing on nothing else but the task at hand. That was until she saw who it was that was coming.

  Two riders only. Not the four that had set out earlier in the day, but only two were now coming up and over the hill.

  The sun was beating down, glaring onto the two of them as they rode and masking who they were from Ana’s sight. Her memory went back to earlier that morning, as though her heart was trying desperately to distract her from the truth that was riding up to meet her.

  ***

  “You promise that you'll be quick with this one?"

  "Of course I do.” Tim smiled down at her, his hands affectionately cupping her cheeks. “I’ll be all right like always, you've got to believe that.”

  “I know, I just don't like seeing you go on without me. What if something does happen?”

  “Nothing's going to happen.”

  As if to reinforce this, Tim leant down and pressed a tender kiss to Ana's lips, a small reassurance for the trip ahead of him.

  "Just make sure you've got the horses ready, and I’ll be back before you know it. You won't even know that I'm gone.”

  "Yes I will, Tim. I always miss you when you go. It’s almost like I can't bear to not be with you all the time.”

  Tim chuckled at this, shaking his head as he looked down at her.

  “I don’t want you to worry about me. You know that out of this group, I'm not exactly the one that would get caught out. Not in comparison to Leroy or Carl for example."

  “Hey, I heard you over there!”

  But the two lovers ignored the grunting shouts of the other gang members. Although they didn't know it at the time, it would be a longer goodbye than they were bargaining for. Ana frowned as she felt dread sinking in, as she’d had the bad feeling about this particular robbery all morning.

  "Are you sure that any of you should even be doing this? We don't normally double back on a town like this. What if people recognise you?”

  “People won’t—we're going in, getting the money and getting out.”

  "It might not be that simple.”

  Tim put a hand under her chin and moved it until she was looking up at him again.

  “I'm going to be just fine, Ana. I'll see you later before it's even getting dark.”

  "All right then, if you're positive about this. I guess I just have a bad feeling.”

  Tim pressed his lips to hers again. The action was incredibly slow, as though he was taking his time to reassure her.

  “I promise, I’ll see you later.”

  “Come on, everyone, we've got a job to do," Ellis, the leader of the gang, called out. “Oh, seriously? Will you two love birds quit it now? He ain’t going off to his death after all. Come on, boys, we’re leaving.”

  Tim chuckled at Ellis and then looked back at Ana.

  "I'll see you real soon.” He smiled happily as he looked at her, as though she made his unorthodox life complete.

  “I loo
k forward to it.” Ana smiled, pecked his lips one last time, and then made her way over to the various things that needed to be packed by the time that they all returned.

  ***

  But only two were now coming over the horizon. Two men that Ana held her breath for. She felt awful for the thoughts that went through her mind, hoping that in some way fate had been on her side and had gotten rid of the two younger Madden brothers for good. That they’d been caught by a sheriff and then lynched by a mob.

  However, Ana knew that she was only kidding herself. She could see exactly who it was that was coming closer by now. Neither of them had Tim’s build, nor Ellis’ for that matter.

  Leroy and Carl Madden were riding back to the meeting point without the other half of the group. Ana didn't want to know what had happened. She always knew that if someone didn't come back, it was bad news.

  She hadn't even realised that she'd sunken down onto her knees until she felt the hot ground against her covered skin. Rocks dug into the fabric and were sure to mess up her gauchos, but she didn't care; Ana felt entirely broken yet numb all at the same time.

  She didn't know what had happened, who had left who, who would be the one that was remembered as the hero. Again, Ana didn't want to know in that moment. All she could think about was the promise that Tim had made her that morning, the promise that now lay in shattered pieces in front of her.

  The two men dismounted their horses and Ana found herself suddenly wanting to know, needing the answers as to what had happened. The dust was now stinging her eyes, drawing out tears before she even understood what was happening herself.

  The world looked like it was spinning out of control, that she was going to fall down and never get up again. Ana hurt everywhere, the air in her lungs robbed from her, leaving her in a state of complete shock and devastation. All she knew was that she needed answers, and she needed someone to pay for what was happening.

  Chapter 1

  Dust curled up the side of the hill, climbing toward the three crouched figures with such a force that one would have thought the particles were being yanked like a piece of rope.

  Leroy Madden shielded his harsh eyes with a single hand, ducking his head down to use the brim of his hat as a stronger shield against the rising dust while his brother Carl, seemingly unfazed by the shift in the air, continued to scour the landscape in front of them.

  The scowl on his face sloped down like the surrounding hills; however, if anything, they were thankful for the onslaught of dust. It worked in the brothers’ favor to hide their position just under the brow of the hill. Leroy was trying his hardest to focus. Although it had always been something he’d left up to his younger brother, he just couldn’t wait for the action to start.

  Accompanying them was a woman whose auburn head was ducked down entirely into her own chest, partially to defend her face from the dust, yet also because she wasn’t sure she wanted to look out and see what they had come to find.

  After the gusts died down a bit, she straightened, attempting to roll back her rounded shoulders as she sat up, sighing. In the presence of these two men, she wanted to appear strong and agile, wanted them for once to look at her as their equal and not their prize.

  “Ana, I think I’ve got something,” Carl said, pulling out his binoculars to take a better look. Anastasia could feel her heart rate increasing, pounding in her ears louder than any violent wind. “Yep, it’s definitely him, all right.”

  As soon as Carl had finished his words, Anastasia’s head shot around, like a knee-jerk reaction, an instinct.

  She knew that despite the aching, there was still a part of her heart that yearned for this man and was drawn to him like a moth to light. It bypassed any connection to her brain or logic and acted purely on that odd feeling of love that still clung on for dear life after all this time.

  “A-Are you sure?”

  She was surprised by her own timid tone and quickly tried to squash it by clearing her throat. She was strong and wanted to appear so, but her voice betrayed her efforts. She had always had to be strong; it was a habit that was ingrained under her skin, almost second nature, ever since she’d been a child.

  Her voice was still hoarse, words scratching out of her throat, using more effort than she had previously thought she’d need. But it had been a long time coming. Three years, to be exact.

  Ana couldn’t believe that just that morning she had been having doubts. The idea of giving up the chase was so appealing—of living a life where for once they would just be able to stop and do nothing.

  But that wasn’t the life that she had chosen when she was seventeen. That was a dream that always seemed to linger in her mind.

  This was the path that she had chosen to follow, and it wasn’t done with her yet. Sure, she could have continued on as a barmaid, met a normal man, got married, gone to a ranch and lived out her days surrounded by cattle and children.

  A life that she could have had if the Madden brothers hadn’t walked into the saloon she’d worked in when she was merely seventeen.

  Yet no matter how much she clung to hope, she could no longer ignore the white hot pain in her heart, the cracks that had shattered into millions of pieces so small that she didn’t think that they would ever be put together again.

  Her olive green eyes were wide, the usual sharp edges fraying like old fabric and falling apart as reality cleared like the dust in the air that had been carried off by the wind. She tried her hardest to hide this emotional side, putting up the front that she had had constructed from all of the anger.

  So all that’s left is revenge, she reminded herself.

  “Take a look for yourself.” Carl’s voice was gruff, his eyes cold and hard as always, the only color visible that of grey rocks that had been dried out by the sun.

  Ana understood that neither of the brothers liked it when she pushed at their authority, testing boundaries that didn’t exist only brought on another row. Arguments that she had skillfully won only once or twice.

  However, in this instance there would be no mistake. They had been looking for one man for three years, and if Carl Madden said that it was Tim, then it was Tim.

  Nevertheless, she took the weighted binoculars and followed Carl’s finger down the side of the hill and through a small blockade of thin trees. If she squinted hard enough, she could see through their thin needles and into the clearing beyond.

  It felt as though one of the brothers had punched at her gut, a fist-sized hole that only got bigger the longer that she looked.

  It rid her chest of air and left her throat as dry as the ground in the summer season. She would have recognized that ebony hair anywhere. It matched the color of his beard, although both were now longer than she remembered.

  His skin was different too, a darker shade than the heavy mental picture that Ana had been carrying with her for three years. It seemed that in this new life of his, he spent much of his time outside. But in her mind, these new details didn’t matter at all. It was him.

  “Tim.” Her voice was closer to a breath of angry air that had been carried up through the rough landscape than any actual human sound, and she found that every bone in her body wanted to run out and down the hill, to go to him, and—

  No. Think about what he did. The voice in her head tugged back as though it were the leash keeping her fixed to the side of the slope.

  She clawed at any memory available, any false promise that he’d made that would have hinted as to how he had ended up here, on a random ranch in a very random place: Newton Creek, Wyoming.