Savage Land

Janet Dailey

Janet Dailey's Americana Series

Dangerous Masquerade (Alabama)

Northern Magic (Alaska)

Sonora Sundown (Arizona)

Valley Of the Vapours (Arkansas)

Fire And Ice (California)

After the Storm (Colorado)

Difficult Decision (Connecticut)

The Matchmakers (Delaware)

Southern Nights (Florida)

Night Of The Cotillion (Georgia)

Kona Winds (Hawaii)

The Travelling Kind (Idaho)

A Lyon's Share (Illinois)

The Indy Man (Indiana)

The Homeplace (Iowa)

The Mating Season (Kansas)

Bluegrass King (Kentucky)

The Bride Of The Delta Queen (Louisiana)

Summer Mahogany (Maine)

Bed Of Grass (Maryland)

That Boston Man (Massachusetts)

Enemy In Camp (Michigan)

Giant Of Mesabi (Minnesota)

A Tradition Of Pride (Mississippi)

Show Me (Missouri)

Big Sky Country (Montana)

Boss Man From Ogallala (Nebraska)

Reilly's Woman (Nevada)

Heart Of Stone (New Hampshire)

One Of The Boys (New Jersey)

Land Of Enchantment (New Mexico)

Beware Of The Stranger (New York)

That Carolina Summer (North Carolina)

Lord Of the High Lonesome (North Dakota)

The Widow And The Wastrel (Ohio)

Six White Horses (Oklahoma)

To Tell The Truth (Oregon)

The Thawing Of Mara (Pennsylvania)

Strange Bedfellow (Rhode Island)

Low Country Liar (South Carolina)

Dakota Dreamin' (South Dakota)

Sentimental Journey (Tennessee)

Savage Land (Texas)

A Land Called Deseret (Utah)

Green Mountain Man (Vermont)

Tidewater Lover (Virginia)

For Mike's Sake (Washington)

Wild And Wonderful (West Virginia)

With A Little Luck (Wisconsin)

Darling Jenny (Wyoming)

Other Janet Dailey Titles You Might Enjoy

American Dreams

Aspen Gold

Fiesta San Antonio

For Bitter Or Worse

The Great Alone

Heiress

The Ivory Cane

Legacies

Masquerade

The Master Fiddler

No Quarter Asked

Rivals

Something Extra

Sweet Promise

Tangled Vines

Introduction

Introducing JANET DAILEY AMERICANA. Every novel in this collection is your passport to a romantic tour of the United States through time-honored favorites by America's First Lady of romance fiction. Each of the fifty novels is set in a different state, researched by Janet and her husband, Bill. For the Daileys it was an odyssey of discovery. For you, it's the journey of a lifetime.

Preface

When I first started writing back in the Seventies, my husband Bill and I were retired and traveling all over the States with our home—a 34’ travel trailer—in tow. That's when Bill came up with the great idea of my writing a romance novel set in each one of our fifty states. It was an idea I ultimately accomplished before switching to mainstream fiction and hitting all the international bestseller lists.

As we were preparing to reissue these early titles, I initially planned to update them all—modernize them, so to speak, and bring them into the new high-tech age. Then I realized I couldn't do that successfully any more than I could take a dress from the Seventies and redesign it into one that would look as if it were made yesterday. That's when I saw that the true charm of these novels is their look back on another time and another age. Over the years, they have become historical novels, however recent the history. When you read them yourself, I know you will feel the same.

So, enjoy, and happy reading to all!
 

Chapter One

ANOTHER bolt of lightning flamed out of the dark, rolling clouds, followed by a heart-pounding clap of thunder. Colleen McGuire's pulse raced as she involuntarily cringed in her seat. Her large hazel eyes remained fixed on the windshield where the wipers were vainly attempting to wash away the sheets of rain descending from the menacing clouds. Apprehensively she glanced at her brother behind the wheel.

'Danny, don't you think we should stop?’ Fear brought a trembling to her words in spite of her effort to control it.

'Just where would you suggest, Coley?’ he snapped, not taking his attention from the emptiness in front of them. ‘If we stop now, we probably won't get this old clunker started again.'

'We should have listened to that man back at the garage,’ Coley murmured as a fresh torrent of water pummelled down on their car.

'That was thirty miles back, and it was only sprinkling then!’ Danny flashed at her. Tension from the strain of creeping along the winding Texas road made him unnaturally sharp. ‘How was I supposed to know it would be like this!'

'But he said it was raining bad in the mountains, that the road could flood. And those signs we've been seeing,’ Coley persisted logically. At her words, a highway sign was illuminated by their car's headlights—'During wet weather, watch low water crossings'. A sickening moan escaped her lips. ‘Oh, Danny, there's another!'

'Coley, will you stop carrying on about a little rain and thunder! Aren't you ever going to grow out of that childish fear?’ her brother retorted. His knuckles were white from gripping the steering wheel as if his life depended on him not letting it go. With determination, he added, ‘We're going to make it. Don't you worry.'

A forced smile appeared on Coley's mouth as she gulped down her fears and turned to look out her side window. Instinctively her long fingers went to her mouth, where she absently chewed on a nail while watching the jagged forks of lightning turn the hills and mountains around them into towering monsters. Her reflection in the window glass dimly mirrored her thin, angular face with its fine, arched brows, and large hazel eyes that had, if it was possible, grown wider with her anxiety, and her button nose that was fogging a small section of the glass. Her wispy brown hair was as indistinct in the reflection as it was in life, limply hanging below her gamin ears. And yet there was a childlike charm about her that was oddly appealing and a promise of unusual beauty at maturity.

The old Chevy slowed slightly while water swirled around its wheels. It was another water crossing. The colour washed out of Coley's face as she turned her head from the sickening rush of the stream. Numbly she watched her brother's taut face, feeling the current tugging at the car, trying to sweep it off the road. Coley felt herself stiffen with Danny as they slowly edged their way between two poles midway in the crossing. The water was above the hubcaps and inching under the door before they finally made it to the other side. Coley could see the relief on her brother's face when they reached solid ground again.

'What were those poles there for?’ She forced herself to speak to stem the rising panic within her, knowing her brother was beginning to worry, too. When he failed to answer her immediately, she repeated the question.

'High water markers,’ he replied grimly. His young face was beginning to show the strain of the constant demands on his driving ability. He glanced worriedly over at his sister before returning to the road. ‘I'm sure we don't have too much farther to go.'

Despite his attempt to reassure her, his growing apprehension increased her fear. Danny was ten months younger than she, but he had always taken the part of ‘older brother', watching over and protecting Coley even now when she was almost twenty.

'I wish we would have let Aunt Wilhelmina know we were coming.’ Coley's eyes ruefully surveyed the lonely stretch ahead where canyons poked shadowy fingers at the road. ‘At least someone would know we were here. Why didn't you let me write and tell her we were coming?'

A cynical laugh slipped out of Danny's drawn lips. But he couldn't voice his feelings because he knew his soft-hearted sister didn't realize that people often extended offers of help with no intentions of having them accepted. Never having met Aunt Wilhelmina, he had deliberately not notified her for fear that she would retract her invitation for them to come live with her.

Hesitantly he glanced over at Coley huddled on the passenger seat flinching at each crash of lightning. Silently he studied her long-limbed body and the cheap flowered print dress she wore before, grimly, turning back to state out the rain-coated windshield. ‘What a rotten life she's had,’ he thought, not considering that his had been the same. The first time that he had recognized and understood the abuse they had received at the hands of their father was during one of his drunks, when Danny had done his best to shield his sister and to protect her if he could. Sober, their father had been a wonderful man, but he hadn't been sober very often. There had been a subconscious relief when he had finally been killed in a car wreck—the result of drunken driving.

But for Danny and Coley in the first years of their teens, the hardships had just begun. Their mother, delicate all her life, within a year was an invalid from asthma. It was shortly after that that a stubborn pride and hardened bitterness grew in Danny, not for the luxuries they were deprived of, nor the constant part-time jobs that he took to earn enough money to keep them going, but for the clucking tongues of neighbours that continuously deplored their lack of supervision out of one side of their mouths while offering empty promises of help at the same time.

Their mother had refused to let either of them leave school, which Danny supposed he should be grateful for. But since both he and Coley had to rush away as soon as the last bell rang, he to go to work and Coley to look after their mother, there had never been any time for sports, or school dances, or friends. He didn't mind, because ‘men’ didn't miss those things, but Coley should have had them instead of housework, cooking and nursing.

'Why do you suppose Momma never mentioned Aunt Wilhelmina?’ A frown creased Coley's wide forehead, unknowingly interrupting Danny's musings.

'I don't know,’ Danny shrugged. ‘I'm just glad she had an aunt.'

'Aren't you just the teensiest bit scared? Coming out here and presenting yourself to a complete stranger who didn't even know we existed until you wrote her that letter telling her Mother had died.'