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    Rose's Gifts: Winds of Change, #5
    Rose's Gifts: Winds of Change, #5
    Rose's Gifts: Winds of Change, #5
    Ebook100 pages1 hourWinds of Change

    Rose's Gifts: Winds of Change, #5

    By Rain Trueax

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    About this ebook


     

    Rose's Gifts

    Is it ever too late for a passionate love?

     

    Rose has been widowed for several years from a long-time partner. She doesn't expect to ever find that kind of love again. She concentrates her work toward her beloved family, who are not of blood but of the warmth of years together. Cooking, maintaining her garden are enough until someone disrupts it all.

     

    Ollie has never married or  had children of his own. For him, Sam has been like a son. Now though, Sam has a family. Where does that leave Ollie?

    He had seen a woman he might've seen as a wife but she was already married. Then her husband dies. Ollie has to wait to give her time but not too long lest she find another. Others will want her, that, he knows.

     

    Will something come along to disrupt any possibility of a new life even if they do.

     

    Check out what gifts life bestows to all that are open.

     

    Previously released as "Rose's Gift" - RainTrueax 2015

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSeven Oaks
    Release dateMay 18, 2024
    ISBN9781943537815
    Rose's Gifts: Winds of Change, #5
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    Author

    Rain Trueax

    Westerns. I love reading them. Writing my own came as second nature after growing up on the edge of the wilderness, where Sasquatch might still roam, and living most of my adult years on the edge of Oregon's Coast Range. Much as I love the country, I also enjoy a night in a big city for theater, symphony, museums, or exploring bookstores. All my stories and art works portray the values of self worth, hard work, and community while intertwining the complications of physical attraction, sexuality and outside challenges, whether, malicious or societal. Eleven of my contemporary romances are now available in eBook format.Today, I work from a sheep and cattle operation in the Oregon coast range mountains or on the road in the inter-mountain west via satellite link. My goals are to portray real life, real passion, personal growth and mutual fulfillment for heroes and heroines, using the land and the mysteries that one finds when they stop to look around and listen to local legends.The romance novel is a bit of a modern fairy tale as it inspires with imagination and emotions. I think of mine as emotional roller coaster rides for the protagonists who take the reader along as they form a temporary partnership when the reader is pulled into the story. When a romantic novel doesn't build that bridge between story and reader, it hasn't fulfilled its highest purpose.When someone finishes one of my novels, I want them to wish there had been more and sorry it's over but knowing they will read it again someday. I want it to have been an enriching use of their time. Lofty goals? Maybe but without them, what would writing be about?

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      Book preview

      Rose's Gifts - Rain Trueax

      CHAPTER 1

      It was the year of our Lord, 1900, a year that Rose had begun without any feeling it would be different than the years before it, all the years since her husband had died in 1896. Considering herself an old woman, Rose had expected that she would end her life sooner than she had. What was with that? Can’t a body even die when it’s the right time? At sixty, she was feeling far less old than she’d been expecting. She shook her head. Silly old woman.

      She walked to the door and stepped onto her porch, shaking out the dust mop. She missed Holly. The girl was so full of life, had added so much zest to her days. She understood though that when her father died, Holly had to return to Chicago to help her sister take care of the estate—it was apparently a complicated and sizable one.

      Knowing Grace, who was like a granddaughter to her, was expecting her baby in November could have accounted for her feeling of aliveness-- except it didn’t. She looked across the yard and saw the reason her heart was beating faster.

      He leaned on a shovel and smiled at her. He had thrown his shirt over the nearby fence. His skin was slick with sweat. He was a tall man, looked to be skinny but without his shirt, she saw he was all ropy muscle-- lean and strong for a man who had to be in his late fifties. He took off his hat, showing the balding head, which he wiped with the handkerchief he’d pulled from his back pocket.

      You need somethin’ Mz. Redman? he asked with that faint smile and those keen blue eyes that had her barely resisting a sigh.

      No, just. Would you like some lemonade, Mr. Oliver? Looks to me like you have the garden pretty well dug up.

      Got a little more. I was thinkin’ though that I oughta take out that old cottonwood. I know you like it but look at its leaves this year, see the rot in its trunk. It’s gonna fall over in a wind one of these days. Could land in your parlor.

      But Mr. Oliver, how could you take it out safely? The very danger you expressed is my concern about having anyone cut it down.

      Just gotta know the right way, ma’am. I can do it if you want.

      She considered that. She didn’t doubt he had the strength with those muscles. What if it split or fell on him?

      Please come in for some lemonade, and we can... talk about it. I made some sugar cookies.

      I’m too dirty and sweaty for that, ma’am. Maybe bring them outside on the porch?

      She shook her head. That’s silly. It’s much cooler in the house. It’s not as though a little dirt or sweat will hurt my home. She turned and walked in, unsure if he would follow. She knew one thing though. She wanted him to follow. She wanted to see him sitting at her table. She wanted them to talk about something, about anything. She didn’t remember the last time she had felt this way about a man, about wanting a man sitting at her table. Of course, there had been that feeling with James, but it had been so many years ago, that it wasn’t a thought or feeling anymore. It was a distant memory.

      A moment later, he opened the door. His shirt was on and buttoned but not tucked in. You can wash up at the sink, she said. He went to it and rolled up his sleeves before washing his hands and forearms. She tried to look away from those long-fingered hands as he rubbed the soap over them and then over his forearms before rinsing with fresh water. As he dried his skin, she saw the muscles working under its surface. She asked herself again—what is this? Whatever it was, she was way too old for it.

      He’d been a guest in her home many times. First, he had come with the family for which he worked, friends of hers who lived in the San Rafael Valley miles to the south of Tucson. He had been sick and only reluctantly agreed to medical help. When he was stronger, she had thought she’d not see him again-- ranch hands didn’t get to town often. Recently, it had surprised her when her friend Connie told her that he had returned and was now living in Tucson. Not long after, he began coming around with an offer to do chores.

      She shook her head in an attempt to clear it. She was being idiotic. She poured him cold lemonade from her icebox. It and the house had been a gift from Cilla.

      Rose had regretted her inability to have children with James, but Cilla had been so much like a daughter and later Grace like a granddaughter that it taken away the sting. A woman could be a mother by ways other than natural birth. Soon she’d be helping Grace become one. Maybe even someday Holly would return and have babies. Rose could be a grandmother or even great grandmother-- if not of blood, of the heart. She smiled.

      What are you thinking about, gal? Ollie asked staring at her over the rim of his glass. He had yet to take one of the cookies.

      My girls. I’ve been a fortunate woman.

      Reckon it’s been the same for me, he said as he sipped the lemonade. Sam’s my kin as much as if it was by blood.

      He calls you his mother.

      Don’t mind. Sure, I look after him... or did.

      I was surprised when you left the ranch. I know how much you love him.

      I had my reasons. He leaned back in the chair, tilting the legs a little, as some men were wont to do.

      I appreciate all you have done for me here.

      He set the chair firmly on its feet. His gaze met hers without wavering. You know why, I reckon.

      She ran her tongue over her lips. My god what was this about? She was tempted to look away, but she could not. She was too old for this. She was...

      It was you, Rose. I can call you Rose, can’t I?

      She nodded. Of course.

      They call me Ollie, but it ain’t my name. Would you be wanting to call me by my given name?

      Her smile felt weak. I would like knowing it.

      It’s Roman. Now don’t you be telling anybody else that. Nothing wrong with it. I ain’t wanted for anything under it. Not much of a name for an ugly, old coot like me.

      Ugly?

      Like a big old vulture or maybe heron. Big nose, not much hair on top, a skinny old man. I got no right to be thinking what I am, but guess I also ain’t never been a man to walk away from something before I know I have to. I also know you fork a horse as soon as you get to him to make him know what you mean to do... not that I meant... His smile was crooked. For the first time she knew he had a sense of humor and could laugh at himself.

      You’re not ugly to me, Roman, she said. I guess you have Italian in your family for that first name.

      He shrugged. Don’t know much about my family. They never talked about the past, too busy trying to survive the present. Kansas... well, it was always a battlefield-- long as I knew it for anything. Everybody wanted a piece of it, and slavery was dividing the territory long afore it got to the whole nation. Ever hear of the Pottawatomie Massacre?

      "No. Oh, maybe I had. I was born in

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