Kathleen YBarbo - The Confidential Life of Eugenia Cooper

Praise for
The Confidential Life of Eugenia Cooper

Kathleen YBarbos The Confidential Life of Eugenia Cooper is a fast-paced story full of fun, action, drama, and love.

M ARY C ONNEALY , author of Calico Canyon, Petticoat Ranch, and Gingham Mountain

A fun read. Delightful, engaging, charming, and yes, funny. Humor in the characters, especially Miss Eugenia Cooper, humor in the events, as she dreams of and heads on an adventure in the West. I thoroughly enjoyed this romp of a read. If you loved Cathy Marie Hake, give yourself a treat with The Confidential Life of Eugenia Cooper.

L AURAINE S NELLING , author of the Red River Series, Daughters of Blessing series, and One Perfect Day

Take one spirited young woman seeking adventurewith a dime novel heroine as her role modeland add a lonely man determined not to lose his heart again. Stir in the excitement of an Old West setting, and you have a recipe for success. The Confidential Life of Eugenia Cooper is an absolute delight! Kathleen YBarbos writing sparkles like the clear, blue Colorado skies.

C AROL C OX , author of A Bride So Fair and A Test of Faith

Eugenia Flora Cooper has her Mae Winslow, but Kathleen YBarbo is my Woman of the West. In The Confidential Life of Eugenia Cooper, Kathleen takes you by the hand on the first page and draws you into a chase every bit as merry as any Mae Winslow adventure story. Before you realize its happening, you find yourself in places youre reluctant to leave, among characters so genuine they only lack flesh to be real.

M ARCIA G RUVER , author of the Texas Fortunes series

The gap between fiction and reality turns out to be much smaller than Eugenia Cooper realizes when she makes a last minute, ill-planned decision to hop a train to Denver in 1880. With excitement, romance, and humor, Kathleen YBarbo spins a tale that captures your mind. The authors enthusiasm for writing spills out of every scene, creating, as it should, enthusiastic readers.

S TEPHEN B LY , award-winning western author of more than one hundred books, including One Step Over the Border, Paperback Writer, and Wish Id Known You Tears Ago

To Josh, Andrew, Jacob, and Hannah
My life, my loves, my world Im so proud of you!

And to Wendy Lawton, Shannon Marchese, and Jessica Barnes.
Without you and the wonderful team at WaterBrook,
Gennie would be back in Manhattan still reading under the covers.

Sometimes what a person wishes for is neither what they really want nor what they need. Sometimes, its the wishing thats the best part.

Mae Winslow, Woman of the West

The warning came too late.

Mae Winslows finely tuned senses jumped as the fire bell rang, setting the populace into a motion akin to the stirring of a nest of hornets, and sending Mae into a fit of the vapors.

Before the sounding of the alarm, the only stings fair Mae felt in the bleak light of dawn were from her heart and her conscience. She had disappointed dear Henry once again, allowing the calamity that dogged her steps to set her on yet another path leading away from the home and hearth he so freely offered. Surely the long-suffering Henry understood that beneath her buckskin-clad exterior beat a heart that held nothing but love for him despite the vagabond life she must lead.

At the moment, however, her mind must turn from the excess of emotional thoughts that Henry Darling brought and toward the situation at hand. With the practiced eye of one far too well-trained in the ways of desperate outlaws and lowly curs, she lifted the sash of the boardinghouse window and lowered her gaze to the street below. With the fresh wind came the bitter scent of smoke. Alas, the odor did not emit from below or from beyond the bounds of the quaint structure, but rather swirled from behind, as if seeping beneath the slightly crooked bedroom door.

Mae made to turn when a shot rang out. A bullet chipped away several layers of paint on the sill and sent her scrambling to the floor. There, with her breath coming a bit freer, she crawled toward the bed, where her pistols hung on the bedpost.

So, the fair jewel breathed as she wrapped her small fingers around the cold metal that had saved her life more times than she could count, theyve found me.

New York City, July 5, 1880

Something tickled her nose. Eugenia Flora Cooper batted at the offending object, then opened her eyes to see that shed tossed a fringed pillow onto her bedroom floor. A thud told her the book shed been reading last night had gone flying as well.

The book, a brand-new episode of Mae Winslow, Woman of the West. Gennie sighed and pulled the silk and velvet coverlet over her head as she snuggled down into the soft feather mattress. Despite the fact she was required to attend a postIndependence Day breakfast with the Vanowens this morning, then catch a train to Boston at noon, shed devoured every word of the dime novel last evening, staying awake late into the night.

After completing Maes latest adventure, Gennie reluctantly closed her eyes. Even then, the story continued, this time with Gennie as the subject. Shed been running alongside a moving train full of stolen gold, her borrowed cowboy boots dangerously close to tripping her, when the dream abruptly ended. And, like Mae, shed been fleeing the bonds of a man bent on prematurely tying her to home and hearth.

Gennie, like Mae, could admit no real aversion to marriage and family. In fact, she welcomed the idea of a life spent in such a way.

Just not yet.

Like Mae.

Perhaps that was what drew her to Maes stories over other novels. It seemed Mae was the only woman whose books never quite ended with a happily ever after. Each one promised it couldeven shouldand then the adventure took a turn, and so did Mae. By the end of the book, the bad guys were caught but Mae was not.

Someday, if Gennie ever had the nerve, shed just head west down Fifth Avenue and keep walking until she reached South Dakota or Wyoming. Colorado, maybe, where she could pan for gold or dig for silver. Maybe save some hapless child or even a whole town from whatever evil preyed upon it.

Gennie smiled. Wouldnt that be an adventure?

Of course, Mama and Papa would miss her, but what a time shed have riding runaway horses and fending off savage beasts with nothing but a broom and three wet matches. It would certainly be more interesting than painting flowers on china plates or embroidering her initials on handkerchiefs. Mama always had despaired of her stitching.

At the thought of her mother, Gennie bolted upright. It would never do for her choice of reading material to become common knowledge, even though shed never understood the condemnation dime novels drew among her social set. Maes adventures were tame compared to stories she read in the Bible. Surely the Lord smiled equally on the authors of such wholesome entertainment and on those who wrote more scholarly works.