The Blacksmith

In 1880s Tombstone, one sprawling ranch family is about to change — one bride at a time.
 

Since her father passed, Olivia Blanchard has run his ranch and his smoked-meat business on her own — with grit, long hours, and a double-barreled shotgun she isn't afraid to use. She knows every fence line and every recipe by heart.

Then a fire takes it all in a single night, and Olivia is left standing in the mercantile covered in soot, with nothing to her name and nowhere to go.

Joe Stanton, the town blacksmith, has problems of his own — namely a mother and aunt who've picked out a bride for him and won't take no for an answer. When he sees Olivia and understands her situation, he does something impulsive, reckless, and possibly brilliant: he proposes on the spot. They're married by a pastor before his mother can say a word.

But a hasty wedding doesn't make a marriage, and between a mother-in-law determined to disapprove, a neighbor still maneuvering for what's left of Olivia's land, and a grandmother's lavender shawl that seems to understand the heart better than either of them does, what began as an escape starts to feel like something worth fighting for.

Meanwhile, the Stanton and Archer families are more tangled than ever — and in Tombstone, that kind of belonging tends to stick.
 

The Blacksmith is the seventh book in the Archer Family Ranch saga, a sweet historical romance about a marriage of convenience, fighting for what's yours, and the love that grows in the work of an ordinary day — for readers who love wholesome frontier romance and warm western towns.