ROMANCE: His Reluctant Heart (Historical Western Victorian Romance) (Historical Mail Order Bride Romance Fantasy Short Stories) by Jane Prescott Page A

message?
                  “Christopher?” I queried as I pushed open the slightly ajar door.  He turned in his chair, my long-haired, lanky, denim-clad prince, and I beheld him in his glory on the throne of the kingdom of writers.
                  “Andrea!” his face melted into a gorgeous smile, those dimples begging for my fingertips.  “I see you’ve brought my story, come in, come in,” he said, gesturing at the seat before him.  “What did you think?”
                  “It’s an interesting twist,” I said, nervously bending the envelope in my hands.  “I don’t know that I would have thought of it myself.”
                  “Well that’s why I’m here.  To offer a different perspective.”
                  “But Christopher… I take it you read my chapter.  That was a misunderstanding—”
                  “Was it?  I’d like to think not.  You see, Andrea, writing is not the only place where you need to be able to adapt to a new perspective.  In some parts of the world, there are people who believe that kissing is disgusting, a mashing together of the mouths.  In other, orgies are completely normal.”
                  Was the man sane?  “Why are you telling me this?”
                  “Because, Andrea, another perspective on this ‘misunderstanding’ is that I’d like to explore what you wrote about us in the real world.  So I figured I would let you know in the same unique way you clued me in.”
                  My mouth hung open.
                  “Close your mouth, it’s not that shocking.  Oh, and Andrea?”
                  I swallowed hard.  “Y-yes?”
                  He smiled again, and in that moment, I trusted him with everything, my life, my heart, my future.  “Call me Chris,” he said, and that was the end of that.
     
     
    THE END

Taken by the Wild Cowboys
     

Jerry and Dillard had been cowhands for a long time before they'd decided to become cowboys. It might sound silly to think of the two as mutually exclusive, but it certainly is a case of every square being a rectangle but not every rectangle is a square—it wasn't until the two armed themselves and sent a pack of cow thieves running for the hills with slugs flying past their ears that most people realized that the pair were a force to be reckoned with. Not every pair of cowhands is a force to be reckoned with.
                  For a while the two had gotten sick of tending to cattle and decided to be the security crew for a few of the stagecoaches that banks used to move money around the western frontier. There was plenty of country in Colorado that made it easy to ambush a stagecoach, and even trains. The work had been fun and demanding, always changing from one day to the next. But on the other hand it had also been dangerous, and it eventually it would catch up with them. One of the larger banks out east was tired of dealing in numbers when it came to security, especially when it didn't matter how many men were there if they all broke and ran at the same time. So they'd come to the Jerry and Dillard to try and strike up some kind of bargain. Well, they hadn't come, they'd sent someone.
                  “My name is Bell,” she introduced herself as soon as she walked into the saloon. “And I'm glad to make you two gentlemen's acquaintance. I think we are about to have a long and very profitable relationship. Do you mind if I use the outhouse?”
                  Neither men said anything, and Bell left her hat on the table in front of her seat.
                  “Whatever bank we're dealing with sure must be from progressive New York to put make a black lady large and in charge like this,” Jerry said. “Kind of makes me think maybe we could make it, after all.”
              “Shit,