As the local midwife and sole medical professional in her Nebraska community, Miss Emma always wants to help. When she learns the Owens family's bitter enemy has hired a gunman to force them from their home, she rushes to the Owens homestead to warn them. But the gunman has arrived sooner than expected. Despite Miss Emma's efforts to protect her friends, her actions only worsen their plight. Now, Rosalind Owens battles a severe infection, and Miss Emma's medical skills aren't enough to save her. Professional gunman Luke Palmer was hired to remove the Owenses from their land, but he now suspects the family has a legal right to stay. As fear and uncertainty grip the Owens family, Palmer offers his aid. Can they trust him, or is his offer a ploy to remove them from their land for good? Amidst these conflicts, Palmer faces his own internal struggle, torn between his wish to forget the past and the urgent need to save an innocent life. Born only a few miles from where Jesse James robbed his first train, Rachel Kovaciny has loved the Old West all her life. She now lives in Virginia with her husband and their three homeschooled children. In her free time, Rachel writes a column about Old West history for the "Prairie Times," reads, bakes, blogs, watches movies, and daydreams. Her book "My Rock and My Refuge" was the 2023 WILLA Literary Award Finalist in Young Adult Fiction and Nonfiction and the 2023 PenCraft Awards 2nd place winner for Christian Historical Fiction. Her book "Cloaked" was a finalist for the 2018 Peacemaker Awards for Best Western YA/Children's Fiction.
