A CHANGE OF SCENERY

A CHANGE OF SCENERY
Friday, February 12, 2021 by DAVALYN SPENCER

PLEASE WELCOME

DAVALYN SPENCER

FICTION FRIDAY

AN EXCERPT FROM A CHANGE OF SCENERY

Since I wrote this story, seven other titles have been published. But I couldn’t let the Hutton family go. I couldn’t let the early years of Cañon City go, for it is truly a town from the Old West that happened to survive. –Davalynn Spencer

CHAPTER ONE

Cañon City, Colorado

June 5, 1911

The gunshot rooted Ella to the concrete sidewalk.

Chest tight, unable to breathe, she clutched the folded shirt to herself until the truth twisted through her, loosening her muscles and her fear.

It wasn’t gunfire. Not in today’s civilized world of unlikely things moving on their own accord. Things like pictures and carriages.

Air squeezed from her lungs, and her lips parted to aid its escape.

The motorcar passed and she continued on, black leather low-cuts tapping an irregular beat from the Hotel Denton to the corner of Seventh and Main.

At the curb, she paused for another choking contraption in full complaint of its early morning errand. Here to stay, as much as she despised them, at least the automobiles were more easily observed than ridden in. Somewhat.

The dust and her apprehension settled a second time and, stepping into the intersection, she smoothed the recently mended shirt draped over her arm. She’d been early to work every morning since arriving in town three days ago, and she intended to maintain the habit.

Another backfire, another sudden stop.

A horse screamed in the next block. Frozen halfway across the street, Ella watched it rear in its traces. Break free. Bolt down the street with its buggy.

Grounded as surely as the hotel on the corner behind her, she stood unable to move. Someone yelled. Men rushed into the street, shouting and waving their arms. Wild-eyed and panicked, the horse charged straight for her.

A lone rider came up behind the buggy, gaining on the flailing contraption. He leaned low along his horse’s neck, his hat brim plastered back in his speed.

Jockey-like, he passed the runaway. Ella raised her hands to her face—and flew into the air. The wind crushed from her as the rider swung her up against his leg.

Dirt and gravel kicked into her face. Storefronts and people raced past.

Dangling like a trick rider at a Wild West Show, she squeezed her eyes shut against the bizarre parade.

The rider tightened his arm around her waist and leaned to his left.

“Whoa!” His leg flexed beneath her as he held his seat in a racing turn. Hoofbeats muffled, and her eyes flew open as his horse charged across a city park. Crowded into the wide turn, the buggy nag slowed on the grassy surface. Its winded gasps warned of collapse.

The rider’s pace slackened to a trot, and Ella’s insides bounced like the empty, rattling buggy behind them. He reined to a jarring stop. “You all right, ma’am?”

She twisted to look up at eyes blue as the sky behind them and creased at the corners. His arm relaxed but didn’t release her.

Grit coated her lips. Her stomach rolled. Oh Lord, no. She was going to be sick.

ABOUT A CHANGE OF SCENERY

A hidden fear. A daring challenge. A liberating love.

A motorcar accident on a rainy Chicago night steals Ella Canaday’s fiancé as well as her ability to ride. Clinging to the remnants of her independence, she cuts her hair and her ties with her wealthy father and takes a train west as the seamstress with a moving-picture company. Colorado offers the change of scenery she needs. But she doesn’t expect the bold cowboy who challenges her to reclaim both the loves she thought she’d lost forever.

Cale Hutton needs the money the moving-picture company is paying for use of his cattle and horses, but he’s not keen on some city gal gettin’ in the way at the ranch. Between the filming crew by day and a rogue cattle-killing bear by night, his attention snags on the little bob-haired seamstress. Something about her easy manner around his horse sets his mind to find out what she’s hiding and why she has such a pull on his heart.

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https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1064987

ABOUT DAVALYN SPENCER

Davalynn Spencer is a Publisher’s Weekly and ECPA bestselling author and winner of the Will Rogers Gold Medallion for Inspirational Western Fiction. She is the wife and mother of professional rodeo bullfighters and the author of sixteen titles, both contemporary and historical. She blogs monthly for Christian Authors Network, contributes to the American Christian Fiction Writers blog, and writes her own weekly inspirational blog. She appears on the area radio broadcast, Write Time Radio, and teaches writing workshops when not wrangling Keeper the Cowdog and mouse detectors Annie and Oakley. Connect with her at https://www.davalynnspencer.com

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