Love In The Midst Of Injustice (Preview)

Chapter One

August 1890

Aurelia, California

The journey out West from Boston by train had been fascinating. Vivica Bender had never had the opportunity to truly explore the wonder of steam locomotion before, never having gone more than a few miles from her home. But now, she’d had weeks of travel and felt she understood the engine rather well. It was a fascinating piece of machinery with its pistons firing, and the steam held under pressure to be released at the right time. It was glorious. 

“What are you reading, dear?” Mrs. Plumber asked. 

She was an old woman with iron-gray hair, thick spectacles on her nose, and hunched shoulders. However, what her body lacked in strength in her old age, her mind more than made up for. She was an observant, shrewd woman. Sitting across from Vivica in the mostly empty dining car, she was always interested in what Vivica had found to read. 

“An interesting article on advancements in the internal combustion engine,” she said. “The author has hypothesized that using such an engine, with vast improvements, I’m sure, he could launch a vehicle into the air.” 

Mrs. Plumber snorted her derision. “And there I was hoping you’d found something suitable.” 

“What do you mean, suitable?” Vivica asked. To her mind, this was perfect reading material. Raised in a house with a physics professor for a father and a schoolteacher for a mother, she had been encouraged to read journals on all sorts of subjects. Not least, the sciences. 

“Well, a pretty, bright girl like you should be reading novels and romances,” Mrs. Plumber said. And then, in response to Vivica’s incredulous expression, she added. “Or at least a journal article that deals with good housekeeping. Or what is your future husband to do? Make his own meals and clean his own clothes?” 

Vivica shrugged. “I don’t see why he wouldn’t be able to do so. After all, all those things require is the ability to move one’s hands and use implements. Since we as a species have been doing that for a long time, I see no reason he should struggle.” 

Mrs. Plumber sighed. “There is no convincing you, is there?” She picked up her teacup and studied Vivica over it. Vivica could feel her gaze penetrating her skin. “Does your mother know what you read?” 

Vivica smiled and put the journal down. “As a matter of fact, Mrs. Plumber, she is the one who pointed the article out to me.” 

That was too much for the older lady. She threw her hands up in the air and shook her head. “Honestly, these modern women. Soon you’ll be expecting the men to stay home and look after the children.” 

“Once again, I don’t see the problem,” she said. “They are certainly part of making them, so why not be part of raising them?” 

Mrs. Plumber smiled. “Well, at least on that point, we agree. Raising children on your own is no fun at all. I never saw the reason why I had to be saddled with them. And my boys were naughty little ankle-biters. Of course, they turned out all right in the end. But the getting there was sometimes arduous.” 

Vivica smiled and patted the older woman’s liver-spotted hand. “I’m certain you were a wonderful mother.” 

Mrs. Plumber’s smile turned wry. “And I’ll tell you as much, your husband won’t thank you for fixing the pump in the yard, but he will thank you for cooking him a good dinner.” 

“I can cook,” Vivica said. “Being interested in academics doesn’t mean that I didn’t learn all the other stuff too. I can roast a chicken and mash a potato as well as the next young woman. My sewing is passable, but I refuse to embroider and simply can’t knit. And now you know all about me.”

“Oh, I doubt that,” Mrs. Plumber said. 

Vivica laughed. Over the weeks of the journey from Boston heading all the way to California, Mrs. Plumber had become a firm friend to Vivica. There was something refreshing about the way she didn’t mince her words but said precisely what she was thinking. 

That and her rather traditional views of how women should behave and what they should do with their time were interesting to Vivica, who had grown up in a much more progressive household. With both parents lobbying for women to receive the same education as men, to be allowed into serious academia, and to have their views taken as seriously as a man’s, meeting someone who thought that roasting a chicken properly was the height of what she could hope to achieve, was mind-boggling. 

Mind-boggling, but interesting, nonetheless. 

They had come to some sort of agreement between them and enjoyed the things they had in common, a love of poetry and philosophy, and let their differences lie. But their journey was coming to an end. It was sad, but California was looming ever closer, and once they reached that golden coastal state, they would have to say goodbye. 

Mrs. Plumber was going to San Diego to live with her niece, a lovely girl named Nora who had married a man who did something with the railroad. What he did, Mrs. Plumber wasn’t sure, but it sounded as though it was clerical or administrative position, and he didn’t travel, at all. 

Vivica was going north to a little town in the Black Hills called Aurelia. She had secured herself the position of schoolteacher in that town and was quite proud of the new position. Of course, her parents were not too thrilled with this. They had wanted her to go into academia, to be the first female professor of physics or mechanics or something scientific. And yet she had opted for small-town teacher. This had enraged her father to the point where he was currently not speaking to her. Being of German heritage, Professor Walter Bender could hold a grudge most effectively. Vivica suspected he might go to his grave of old age before speaking to her again. 

Her mother was less annoyed. After all, she was a teacher herself. Alison Bender had been a teacher for a long time, and she knew that this was something Vivica had to do. Being born and raised in a university town could feel stifling for a person. Never really having traveled or done anything on her own, it was understandable that someone as driven, adventurous, and excitable as Vivica would want to see something of the world before settling down. 

Still, why Vivi had chosen a town, to quote her mother: “On the dark side of the moon,” was beyond Alison. And she had told her daughter that, often, before Vivica boarded the train. 

Now, as the time came ever nearer when she would disembark from the train and finally reach her destination, Vivica began to wonder why she had chosen Aurelia as the place to hang her proverbial hat. It was a little mining town, mining gold, a little silver, and a smidge of copper. 

No, if she were honest with herself, and she tried to be, she was going there because it was an adventure. It would be something to tell her children one day. That she had boarded a train and traveled bravely out West to teach in a tiny little town. That she had done what others only read about in storybooks. 

What Vivica wanted most of all was to make a difference in the world. Even if it was only in this small corner of it. 

To that end, she bid Mrs. Plumber a most fond farewell in San Bernardino, where the older lady would take the train south, while Vivica would go north. From there, she rode the train that would go all the way up to Oregon but only as far as Cherry Hills. 

This was another small town just before the Black Hills, or so she’d been given to believe. From there, she would catch the Cooper, Oswald, and Franklin railway all the way to Aurelia. The Cooper, Oswald, and Franklin line was run by the mine itself and so was strictly for the town’s use only. 

Vivica found herself in a single passenger car with a whole host of men. Miners, the lot of them, unkept, grizzly sorts who stared at her and made her a little nervous. She kept to herself, sitting near the door, and read a book. 

Luckily that part of the trip was only an hour or so long, and before anyone had really begun to bother her, they arrived at the station in Aurelia. 

Spilling out of the door as fast as she could, Vivica moved out of the way and allowed all the miners to leave first before finding her trunk in the luggage section. 

“There you go, miss,” a young man said. He had terribly crooked front teeth but his smile was still bright and friendly. He wore the railway uniform and had a badge on his shoulder that proclaimed him a porter. 

“Thank you so much,” Vivica said. 

“Are you the new schoolmarm?” he asked. 

She nodded. “That I am,” she said. 

“Well, gosh!” he exclaimed. “I might have insisted my pa let me go to school more often if you’d been my teacher.” 

“And why is that?” she asked. “You don’t know if I’d be a good educator.” 

The young man frowned at her. She sighed. “Educator is another word for teacher,” she said kindly. It seemed he might have missed entirely too much school. 

“Ah, see, I was right,” he said. “You’ve been here two minutes talking to me, and already I’ve learned something new.” He took his peaked cap off his head and pulled out a notebook and stub of a pencil. He flipped through the pages and, after licking the tip of the pencil, began to write. 

“What’s your name?” Vivica asked with a rueful smile. 

“It’s Sam,” the young man said. “Samuel Sharpe. And you are?” 

“Miss Vivica Bender. And what are you writing down?” she asked. 

“Oh, that educator means the same as teacher,” Samuel said. “Educator is with an O, right?” 

Vivica checked his spelling and nodded. “Well done. That would earn you a prize in my class.” 

“A prize?” Sam asked. 

‘Oh yes, like a special star to put on your chart or a new pencil,” she said. 

He beamed. “Well, if you ever start classes for the likes of me, I’ll be there.” 

“Good to know,” Vivica said. She took the handle of her trunk. It was huge, but it had wheels, and she could balance her carpetbag on it and trundle the whole lot along with little effort. “Now, I just need to find my ride.” 

She peered at the platform. There were people greeting each other and shaking hands or hugging before moving off. Some others were milling about, perhaps waiting for rides of their own. 

“They’re over there,” Sam said, pointing to two men and a woman who stood looking around the platform. 

“How do you know?” she asked. There wasn’t a sign or anything Vivica could see. 

“That’s an easy one,” Sam said. “That’s Mrs. Mary-Anne Lester there, and with her, the tall man with the blonde mustache is Mr. Chester Darling. He’s on the board, and then there’s Lucas Ward. Don’t know why he’s here. 

The last one on Sam’s list was a brown-haired man with a friendly face who did seem out of place with the two he was with. They were dressed smartly, but he was in work pants and a shirt. Of the three, Vivica suspected he’d be the most interesting to speak to. 

“Thank you once again, Sam,” Vivica said with a bright smile just for him. “You have certainly been most educational.” 

Sam beamed. 

Vivica trundled her trunk along the platform of the station to where the three were waiting for her. 

“Oh my, do you think she missed the train?” Mrs. Lester was saying when Vivica arrived. 

“Hello there,” Vivica said brightly. “I’m Vivica Bender, and you must be Mrs. Lester and Mr. Darling.” She held out her hand to shake. 

Mrs. Lester, a plump woman in a severe dress that was somewhat out of fashion, regarded her sternly. 

“Oh my!” she said. “You are here. Well now.” She looked Vivica up and down. 

Vivica wondered if she was a mess. It was possible. Weeks of travel being what they were. She would almost kill for a hot bath. 

“Welcome,” Mr. Darling said. His blonde mustache waggled as he spoke. “We certainly are thrilled to have you here.” Then he turned to the other man. “Lucas, be a good fellow and help Miss Bender with her bags. 

“You can hand them over to me,” Lucas Ward said. 

Vivica did, and they led the way through the station, such as it was, to where the cart was waiting in an open field. Lucas loaded her trunk into the cart before helping her into the back. Then they all climbed aboard, with Mrs. Lester sitting up front with Lucas while Mr. Darling climbed in the back with Vivica looking less than thrilled. 

The ride into Aurelia from the train station was lovely. All around her were rolling hills. Some with crops growing on them, some covered in grassland, and others nothing but protruding rock formations. All in all, it was a fascinating ride. 

“Did you have a good trip?” Mr. Darling asked. 

“Oh, yes. The train was most comfortable,” Vivica said. “I’m so glad to be here. I’ve been looking forward to getting to the school to settle in. There is so much to do before the school year starts.” 

“Yes, about that,” Mrs. Lester began. “We thought we would help you by giving you this.” She turned in her seat and handed Vivica a huge book. It was thick and heavy. 

Vivica took it, frowning. “What is this?” 

“Just the curriculum we would like you to stick to,” Mrs. Lester said. 

Vivica frowned. Of course, the board would have to have some say in what the children were taught, but mostly the syllabus was a set thing. Not even a little town like Aurelia could choose its own lessons. 

“How thoughtful of you,” Vivica said, feeling a little confused. 

“Yes, well we have very strong views in Aurelia about what we want our children to learn,” Mrs. Lester said. “There is no space in our town for woolly thinkers. They must be taught to think properly and to follow the paths that God and society have laid out for them. Not for us is the idea that girls should learn science. Honestly, have you ever heard something so ridiculous?” 

Vivica’s breath caught in her throat. She opened the book. Mr. Darling was watching her intently. 

“Surely, we don’t need to scare her,” he said kindly, speaking to Mrs. Lester. “She only just got off the train.”

“As I explained before, Chester, this is the best time,” Mrs. Lester insisted. “Then there can be no confusion, no misunderstanding, and no getting off on the wrong foot. Don’t you agree, my dear?” 

Vivica’s first instinct was to tell Mrs. Lester that she was not her dear, and that she would be teaching the correct syllabus in the latest teaching methods she’d been taught by her mother. However, something told her that that was one way to be fired and put back on that train and sent home in disgrace faster than she could say Boston. 

So, instead, she nodded and smiled and closed the book. 

“Thank you so much for this,” she said, trying to keep the horror from her voice. “I’m sure I will find this a great help.” 

Luckily, the drive to her accommodations was short. It was a lovely little cottage with its own garden and a beautiful porch that looked out over a duck pond. The only possible downside was that it was on Mrs. Lester’s land. Her large and auspicious house was visible from Vivica’s new front yard. 

She was deposited in said yard, and handed the key. 

“The rules of your rental are displayed inside the cottage right on the front door,” Mrs. Lester said. “And now we’ll let you get settled. Dinner is at six sharp up at the house. We expect to see you there, clean and dressed properly.” 

Vivica looked down at her skirt and blouse and wondered what on earth Mrs. Lester was referring to. She was dressed in the latest fashion as it applied to working young women. But this was a new town and a new world to her, so Vivica vowed to herself that she would make the best of it. If that meant pulling out one of the two dresses she’d brought, then so be it. 

“Thank you, Mrs. Lester,” she said. “I’ll see you at six…sharp.”

Chapter Two

August 1890

Aurelia, California

Charles Jesse Wells sat behind his desk in his little tent and stared at the figures he’d been working on. Gosh! How he wished they looked a little better. Production was down by fourteen percent. That wasn’t going to sit well with Mr. Wallace, the foreman, nor with Mr. Cooper, one of the owners of the mine. 

He sighed and bit the end of his pencil. Of course, there was nothing he could do about the figures. He wasn’t that kind of person. They were what they were, and the deeper the mine went underground, the more they would need to rely on some of the innovations that were being employed in other mines. New-fangled machinery, as Mr. Cooper referred to it. 

Mr. Cooper was sixty-five years old and a stubborn old man who seemed to live in a constant state of believing that everything old was good. Even when it came to mining techniques. 

Jesse, no one but his mother had called him Charles, was not in agreement with Mr. Cooper. But a large number of locals were. Especially after the accident two years ago that had claimed the lives of ten miners and had maimed another four. 

He shifted and looked at the corner of his tent. In a box, hidden under a lot of other junk, was the guilty party in the accident. It was the pulley system for the mining carts. This system was supposed to be stronger, more reliable, and able to work with far heavier loads allowing the miners to bring more ore up to the surface. That would increase production and hopefully, profits. Depending on the quality of the ore extracted, of course. 

But now it lay in his tent, broken and useless. Jesse bit his pencil again and stared at the ledger. What was he going to do? They were expecting some sort of magical answer from him. Sadly, he wasn’t a magician, and he couldn’t make the mine do better and stay competitive with other mines in the area if the owners and the miners were against installing new equipment. 

They had started out using donkeys to haul the carts up to the surface. Now, Jesse had nothing against the beasts. In fact, he quite liked them. They were reliable, worked hard, and gave him less grief than the miners did. However, they were pricey in food and care. They needed to be rested and groomed and kept in good condition. That all cost coin and, in the long run, was pricier than just getting a winch and pulley system that could handle the load. And with the river running down right by the mine, they could get the water flowing in the river to turn to the wheel and do all the hard work hauling the load up. 

Maybe he could tweak the system as it was. The mine had reverted to a mixture of donkeys and an old pulley system that worked well but could only handle smaller loads at a time. He pulled out the schematics he’d drawn up of the system and began to inspect them. Again. For the millionth time. 

“Mr. Wells?”

The speaker was a young man, not more than twenty, who had just stuck his head in through the flap in Jesse’s tent. 

He looked up and raised his brows. “Yes?” 

“I was wondering if I might have a word with you, sir?” the young man said. 

Jesse was only about six years older than the man addressing him, and he would never get used to being called ‘sir’ by someone so close to his own age. 

“Sure, come on in,” Jesse said, gesturing to the seat in front of his desk. “Have a seat…um…Christopher, isn’t it?” 

“Yes, sir,” Christopher said. “My last name is Carter, sir.” 

“That’s right,” Jesse said. He steepled his fingers. “Well, what can I do for you?” 

Christopher clearly had something on his mind. He held his peaked cap in his hands and twirled it round and round with evident nerves. 

Jesse waited. Clearly, there was something on his mind. 

“Well, sir, I was wondering if I could have an advance?” the nervous Christopher asked. 

Jesse swallowed. Ah, there it was. “Well, as you know, only Mr. Wallace can approve such requests.” 

Christopher swallowed and nodded. He was actually sweating. 

“What do you need the money for?” Jesse asked. 

For a moment, Christopher didn’t reply. Then with a hitch in his voice, he said, “It’s my ma. She’s sick, and I need to take her to San Bernardino to go to the hospital. Dr. Cornwall said so just yesterday when he stopped by. It’s her lungs, sir. They’re not good. They’re terrible, in fact, and she is suffering something awful. Dr. Cornwall wrote a letter….” He dug into his ragged jacket pocket and carefully pulled out a wrinkled envelope. He handed it to Jesse. 

Jesse took it, slipped the letter from the envelope, and began to read. It was a sad note stating that Dr. Cornwall felt he’d done all he could for Mrs. Carter and that she would be better served by the hospital and a Dr. Moore, in particular. 

Having lost his own mother seven years ago, Jesse could relate. It was horrible when parents got sick, and someone had to take care of them. 

He folded the letter carefully again and gently slipped it back into its envelope. Then he handed it back to Christopher. 

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go see Mr. Wallace.” 

Mr. Wallace was standing by the crusher, a huge machine that took the rocks brought up by the miners and crushed them to dust. It was a loud, dirty job. Mr. Wallace finished giving instructions to one of the miners operating the machine before turning to them. 

Over the thump, thump of the machine, it was hard to hear people speaking. Jesse smiled and indicated that he needed to talk, and so they moved away from the crusher, which was affectionately known as Thumper. Christopher trailed behind them like a puppy still with his hat in his hands. 

“Pete,” Jesse said. “I was wondering if I might have a word?” 

“Sure,” Peter Wallace said. He handed Jesse a jar of crushed rock. “See what you can make of this. It’s the new strata from shaft three. It looks better than the other two, less silver, more gold.” 

“Okay,” Jesse said. “I’ll do some tests.” Then seeing Christopher hovering, he continued. “So, Pete. Christopher over here has a problem.” He laid out the situation as plainly and in as few words as he could. 

Pete Wallace was not known for his empathy nor for his range of emotion. He was always of the opinion that personal issues were just that, personal, and should be handled off the company clock. The only problem was, some things couldn’t be handled that way, just like Christopher’s problem now. 

“So, you can see that this is a dire situation,” Jesse said. 

Wallace, a short, stocky man of around thirty-four years with black hair and large bulging muscles, chewed on the cigar that hung from his lips. He was never without it. He regarded the hopeful Christopher with a shrewd gaze. 

“You believe him?” Wallace asked. 

“Show him the letter,” Jesse said to Christopher. 

The young man pulled the envelope from his jacket pocket again and handed it to Wallace. He was a lot less careful with the paper than Jesse and Christopher had been, but he read it and then handed it back. “Don’t see how this is our problem.” 

Jesse had expected a hard answer. “Come on, Pete, it’s Christopher’s ma,” he said. “You can’t expect him to focus on chipping rock when she’s suffering so. What will it really cost you anyway? A week or two’s pay, and we’ll be short a miner for that time. But we can get someone in, and when he returns, Christopher will be focused, he’ll feel better because his dear old ma will be looked after, and he’ll be able to work harder. You’ll win then because he’ll bring more ore up.” He took a breath and studied Pete’s square-jawed face. 

For a long moment, Wallace looked from Jesse to Christopher and back. Then he shrugged. “All right,” he said. “Go to Johnson and tell him to give you two weeks’ pay. You can have that much leave, but then you come back to work or lose your place. You got me?” 

Christopher looked as though he could hardly believe his ears. 

“Oh, thank you, Mr. Wallace. Thank you so much,” the young man burbled. “I’ll come back so ready to work, you won’t have to worry about me.” 

Christopher shot him a surprised and smiling look, and then he was off to Johnson, the man who worked with the petty cash, to get his wages. 

Jesse watched him go. 

Wallace did too, but with a different expression to the one Jesse wore. “He doesn’t come back and work off that loan, it’s coming out of your wages,” he said. 

Jesse nodded. “I figured.” 

Carrying his jar of dirt, he went back to his tent and began to square away the ledgers. The next bit of his job was going to be messy. He had to test the quality of the gold, and for that, he had to extract it from the raw ore. 

He had a tray that held a mixture of water and cyanide, and he would drop the dirt into it, allowing the solution to bond with the gold and extract it from the basic rock compounds, which would be easy to take out. Then what he’d have left was the gold itself which would need a little more refining before he’d know the quality. 

He donned his protective sleeves, glasses, and leather apron. Then he unscrewed the lid of the jar and had just emptied the contents, which were a fine powder, into the tray when a head appeared in his tent again. 

“Hey there,” came a bright voice. 

Jesse looked up to find his old friend, Lucas Ward, peering at him between the tent flaps. 

“Playing with potions again?” his friend asked. 

Jesse shook his head. “How many times do I have to tell you? I’m not a magician. I don’t make potions.” 

Lucas laughed and waved his friend over. “Leave that nonsense and come sign for the lumber. Johnson ordered more support beams, and I am here delivering them.” 

Jesse sighed and took his protective sleeves, glasses, and leather apron off. It was fine to leave the process there. It would take some time for the water and cyanide solution to work with the useful metals. He could leave it. 

Stepping out into the sunshine, Jesse smoothed back his dark hair and grabbed his wide-brimmed hat from the stand by the flap. He pulled it on his head and went to Lucas. His friend was waiting a little ways from the tent now, patting one of the donkeys. 

“Greeting a family member?” Jesse asked with a wry grin on his face. 

“Na,” Lucas said with a chuckle. “You know how I feel about your relatives.” 

The donkey brayed as though it understood their exchange and had taken some sort of offense at the suggestion it was related to either of them. 

They walked away from the animal which was cropping the grass outside a tent. 

Walking along the little pathways between the miner’s tents, it always made Jesse think of the mine as a little town. A lot of the men preferred to live there and not trek back into Aurelia every day. They would return to town on the weekends and see their friends and family before heading back for the Monday shift. It was a good twenty minutes by horse to the town and even longer on foot. 

He supposed it made sense, but Jesse would never do that. He had other responsibilities at home. 

Lucas had parked his cart at the supply dump, and as they made their way there, the two friends struck up a conversation. 

“So, went to pick up the new teacher last evening,” Lucas said, chewing a grass stalk he’d just picked and popped in his mouth. 

“You don’t say,” Jesse said. “Is she anything like Dragon-Lady Boyes?” 

Jesse had little love for the former teacher and headmistress of the local school. She and he had butted heads often over her teaching. Jesse, being the inquisitive child he had been, had wanted to know more, to explore the world of science, but Mrs. Boyes had staunchly refused. And so, he had gone to great lengths to get journals and books on the subject. This had only made their conflict worse as he had often corrected her in class when she taught something that modern science had recently proven to be wrong. 

Lucas chuckled. “Actually, she’s nothing like the old dragon,” he said. “She’s nice. I think you might like her.” 

Jesse frowned at that. “Why?” 

“Well,” Lucas said. “I noticed when I was helping her with her luggage, that her trunk was far heavier than one would be that only had clothes in it. So, I’m betting she brought half a library of books along. And she had a science journal sticking out of her handbag. And she looked horrified when Mrs. Lester gave her that old curriculum book of hers. You know that one Dragon-Lady always referred to?” 

Jesse knew that horrible, antiquate tome well. He’d been forced to copy entire passages of inaccurate information from its hateful pages when he was in school and had dared to disagree.

They reached the cart. It was loaded up with many long, sturdy-looking poles. Jesse knew they were of lodgepole pine and were strong. They would stop the deep caverns and tunnels from crashing in on the miners. 

Lucas had all the paperwork, and between them, he and Jesse checked everything to make sure it was right. He was also delivering new parts for the old pulley system and sacks of donkey feed. The grass at the mine was sporadic, and the animals needed more nutrition than it could provide on its own. 

Jesse was happy to sign for the lot. When he was done, Lucas gestured to the three strong lads he’d brought with him, and they began to offload the goods and stack them in the supply yard. The yard was run by Mr. Tanner, who directed where things should go. 

As the others did the heavy lifting, Lucas and Jesse retired to the shade of a pine tree and continued their talk. Jesse was interested in the new schoolmarm. He had two nephews who were in school, and he had dreaded them having to deal with the old dragon. He hoped this new one would be better, more modern in her approach to certain things. 

“So, you coming to the church picnic next weekend?” Lucas asked. 

Jesse shrugged. “I’ll bet Alice will want to go.” 

Lucas nodded. “How is she?” 

“I don’t know,” Jesse said. “She’s still crying a bit, but not as much as before.” 

“Too bad Alfred died in that accident,” Lucas said. 

Jesse regarded him with a wry smile. “You’re not that upset, are you? I mean, you’ve only liked her since school.” 

Lucas shrugged and ran a hand through his dark hair. “I don’t know. I liked Alfred. He was a good man.” 

“Yeah,” Jesse agreed. “He was.”

He had moved in with her to help with raising the two boys, Tommy and Jason. When school started up again in September, he’d be the one to drop them at the schoolhouse and pick them up each day as it was on his way to the mine. 

When the goods were offloaded, Jesse went back to his tent, and Lucas drove back to his job at the lumber yard. 

Jesse finished his work and decided to head home a little early. He mounted his horse and rode down the hill into town. Aurelia, named after the founder’s wife, was in a little valley. It had several creeks and springs that brought in water, and the wells in the area were deep and mostly reliable. Around him were citrus groves, rows of grapevines, and fields of other crops that dotted the hills as the road wound down into the valley itself. 

As he rode past the open field the school building stood in, he turned to look at it. It was mostly by force of habit, and since it was August, he wasn’t expecting to see anyone there. And yet, he did. Perched on the roof, looking most unstable, was a figure. 

Jesse’s heart stopped. He turned his horse and headed towards the school. 

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“Love In The Midst Of Injustice” is an Amazon Best-Selling novel, check it out here!

Vivica Bender hopes to make a lasting impression on the world by inspiring young minds to be creative and search for knowledge. When she takes a job as a teacher in a small, conservative town all the way to California, she realizes her dreams may be beyond her reach. Struggling to survive alone, love is the last thing on her mind, until she meets Jesse who will soon change her whole life…

In a town that rejects her vision, can Jesse be her only hope?

Jesse Wells works at the local mine, holding a degree in metallurgy. An obscure case of a mining accident keeps him awake at night, as even science can’t solve this mystery. While he spends more time with Vivica, their unique bond will motivate him to uncover hidden secrets…

Will Vivica be the one to support his unconventional ideas and embrace him for who he is?

Aside from their mutual interest in all things innovative, Vivica and Jesse find they also share an attraction for each other. As they explore their love, however, they will also have to succeed in changing the minds of truly stubborn townspeople. Would their love bring the town salvation, or would it condemn them to a life of exile?

“Love In The Midst Of Injustice” is a historical western romance novel of approximately 80,000 words. No cheating, no cliffhangers, and a guaranteed happily ever after.

Get your copy from Amazon!