Unexpected Cowgirl Bride  

September 7, 2026 (Edwards and Williams)

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What's a cowgirl to do when a tenderfoot tries to court her?

Jane Willets can outride and outshoot pretty much every man within miles. She can also look them in the eye and speak her mind. That's made it hard to attract a beau, even in Washington Territory, where the men outnumber the women eight to one! So when fancy-talking Alex Wentworth shows up claiming to admire her, Jane's happy to put him to work on the family ranch instead.

Born among the Boston elite, Alex came west with his widowed mother in hopes of recouping the flagging family fortunes. One look at Jane Willets, and he knew she'd be the perfect bride to stand beside him on the frontier. If pretending to be a cowboy for a few weeks will win him her hand, he's willing to build a few callouses.

Alex's mother isn't so sure Jane is worthy of her son, and Jane's brothers aren't too sure about Alex. When the truth about his circumstances comes to light, can Jane and Alex find their way to the true love match they both yearn for?

 

Reviews

"Each time I open the cover of one of Regina Scott's Frontier Brides stories, I know I'm in for a treat. Engaging characters, swoon-worthy romances, vivid descriptions of the Pacific Northwest - she blends all those into stories that keep me turning the pages and then sighing when I reach the end, because I wanted the story to go on and on and on. Each one of the Frontier Brides books has been a delight, but Unexpected Cowgirl Bride has surpassed the previous ones. This is one of the best romances I've read this year, one that will linger in my heart for a long time." Amanda Hart, used with permission

 

Excerpt

Puget City, near Olympia, Washington Territory, September 1877

It took a certain type of person to thrive in the West.

Alexander Wentworth took a deep breath of the briny air as he stood on the boardwalk outside a little mercantile in the frontier town of Puget City. He'd grown up visiting the shipyards in East Boston with his father, even journeyed across the Atlantic to visit his father's relatives in England. Yet there was something sharper, fresher about the scent of Puget Sound. Perhaps it was the tang of the seaweed that clung to the rocky shore as the tide receded. Perhaps it was the towering firs that surrounded the narrow valley crowded with homes.

Perhaps it was the satisfying whir of the sawmill at the water's edge, a sawmill he had helped fund.

"You came all the way from Boston for this?" his friend Montague Mayfield asked beside him, blue gaze fixed on the four clapboard buildings that made up the entirety of Main Street.

Alex smiled. "Yes, I did. Isn't it glorious?"

Monty clapped a hand to the top hat covering his golden blond hair and turned his stare on Alex as if wondering whether he'd lost his mind along with the majority of the family fortune.

Alex did his best to ignore him. Monty was here on a lark, visiting this strange new land where Alex and his mother had retreated after the collapse of his father's dreams. This was where Alex was going to rebuild their lives, where he'd start his own empire. This was where Alex could spread his wings and fly.

He nearly spread his arms right then, but that might have been a little too much for his friend.

After all, the Boston elite had a certain way of doing things. A gentleman was companionable, never effusive. A gentleman was polished and contained, never wild and free. And a gentleman had like-minded friends and married a like-minded lady who came from the right people, the best people.

He drew in another deep breath. All that had changed after his father had died and the true extent of their financial losses had become evident. Vaughn Wentworth had been charming and cultured, always ready to see the opportunity in a situation. But Alex's father had taken far too many risks. He saw that clearly now.

With looks of regret they likely didn't feel, partners and competitors had snapped up the struggling businesses his father had left behind. The bank manager had mouthed platitudes about forbearance while he foreclosed on the house. Worse, friends Alex had known his entire twenty-nine years had been suddenly too busy to spend time with him. And Blanche's father had explained that, while the gentleman had once harbored hopes of calling Alex son-in-law, his presence was no longer welcome.

Well, perhaps he didn't need a pampered Boston darling hanging onto his arm. A brave new world called for a brave new wife. A shame he'd read in the paper only today that the men outnumbered the women here eight to one! With little income and no one to vouch for him, he didn't like his chances of success. He was as willing as his father to jump on an opportunity, but Alex had vowed to confirm his intuition before acting on it.

"Watch out!" Monty grabbed his arm and yanked him back from the street.

With a rumble, a wagon tore past, the eyes of the man on the bench wide with terror. Horses shied. People scattered out of the way. Shouts echoed above the thunder of hooves.

"It's a runaway!" Alex cried, shaking off his friend's hand. "We have to help him!"

Once more Monty stared at him. "What do you think you can do?"

More thunder sounded, and a rider on a black horse with a white blaze on its face flashed past. The rider's tattered straw hat flew off, and her hair trailed out behind her like a scarlet flag.

Her hair? It was a woman!

Calico skirts hiked up along her thighs to reveal trouser-clad legs, she pulled her horse alongside the flailing team as the pair neared the dock stretching out into Puget Sound. She leaned over and reached for the reins. Alex's throat tightened as he waited for her to fall under the hooves.

But she didn't fall. With a grace he'd never seen, she seized the trailing bits of leather, righted herself, and tugged the team away from the dock. A few moments more, and she had calmed them to a walk, then a stop, beside the sawmill.

What skill, what daring, what a woman!

Alex clutched Monty's arm. "Did you see that!?"

His friend nodded, top hat slipping. "A veritable Amazon!"

Alex grinned, releasing him. "That's no Amazon. That's my future wife."

"What!" Monty nearly doubled over with the force of the cry. "That's it. You have gone mad."

"Not at all." Alex stepped down into the street so he could keep his gaze on the young lady as the wagon driver offered her his hand in thanks. "That's the sort of woman who can manage the frontier. That's the sort of courage I need by my side."

All around them, the denizens of the frontier town returned to their business, as if wagons nearly rattled to their doom and were miraculously saved several times a day. Yet none of them had acted with such speed and determination. He had to meet her.

Another man was walking toward them. Alex positioned himself to block the fellow's way. This was a small town. Surely everyone knew everyone else.

"I beg your pardon, my good sir," Alex said with a slight bow. "Would you happen to know the name of that brave woman?"

The gray-haired fellow tugged on a suspender over his flannel-clad chest before glancing back toward the sawmill as if to see who Alex could mean. There was only one woman anywhere along the street at that moment, but the older man still returned his gaze to Alex with a confused frown.

"You mean Jane Willets?"

"Jane Willets," Alex breathed. What a lovely name! "Yes, the woman with the fiery mane."

Now the man's brows rose. They were as gray and craggy as the beard bristling on his chin. "Miss Willets is the oldest daughter of Joe Willets and his wife, up at the Jumping J," he informed Alex. "But I wouldn't approach her if I were you, young feller." He leaned closer. "She doesn't take kindly to questions, and she's usually packing."

"Packing?" Monty asked, joining them. "Packing what? I saw no packing plant anywhere in the area."

The older man looked him up and down, then shook his head in dismissal before refocusing on Alex again. "Packing. Heeled up." When neither Alex nor Monty responded, he rolled his eyes. "She wears a Colt single action, and she knows how to use it."

Monty grinned at Alex. "She's armed and fortified. I don't think yon castle is so easily assailed."

The older man's face darkened. "She's a proper young lady, and I'll not have her name bandied about as anything less." He widened his stance, and Alex noticed the pistol at the older man's hip for the first time, the handle worn smooth as if from long use. Monty gulped.

Alex held up his hands. "My friend meant no dishonor, sir. I am an avid admirer of the lady and would like to pay my respects."

The man relaxed only the slightest, but he nodded up the street behind Alex. "Seems I kept you jawing too long, then. There she goes."

He whirled in time to see his bride-to-be riding toward the tunnel of trees that covered the road up onto the plateau. Disappointment nipped.

"Thank you," he told the man, who nodded and continued on his way.

Monty heaved a sigh that could only be called exaggerated. "Please tell me we aren't going to hunt for this Jumping J, whatever that is, and the Amazon it apparently spawned."

"You don't have to come," Alex said, turning for the sawmill, where he'd left the horse he'd borrowed from the livery in Olympia. "But I won't rest until I've at least made her acquaintance and learned whether she truly is the woman for me."

***

"Jane!"

Jane Willets looked over her shoulder from where she'd crouched beside Starfire. Ever since the black mare had charged after that wagon, she'd been favoring her right leg. Jane hadn't been able to find any swelling or a stone in the horse's shoe, but it was wise to keep an eye on things.

Her youngest sister, Joy, stood framed in the light streaming in the wide barn doors.

"What do you need?" Jane asked with a smile, dusting off her hands as she rose.

Joy twisted from side to side, setting both her coppery ringlets and her pink gingham skirts to swinging. "Ma wants you in the parlor. She says you have a caller." She took a step closer, dark gray eyes widening. "Do you have a beau?"

Jane snorted. "Not likely." Despite the fact that she'd been past marriageable age for more than three years, and there were few unwed ladies in the area, not one of the many farmers, ranchers, miners, or loggers had dared approach her. More often, she saw fear in the eyes of the men hurrying past. A few times she'd seen contempt.

Then again, she couldn't say her heart had been moved by any of them either. She wasn't sure why. Maybe God didn't intend for her to marry. Maybe she was supposed to stay here on the ranch and help her family.

Of course, there'd been that one fellow this morning when she'd ridden down to Puget City for the mail…

He'd been standing in front of Egbert's Mercantile, hands on his hips and gaze on the town as if he owned it all and found it good. Tall, maybe even taller than her. Cutaway coat, tailored waistcoat, and trousers in some shiny material that would never wear well out here. A rawheel through and through. So why had her gaze lingered on the smile he'd given his richly dressed companion and the way the breeze fingered through his light brown hair? She'd been tempted to find out what she'd see in his eyes when he looked at her.

And then Mr. Perkins's team had bolted, and every other thought had fled.

"Jane?" Joy asked, sounding confused.

"Sorry. Woolgathering." Jane patted her horse on the shoulder, then walked with her little sister back toward the two-story white clapboard house that had been their home since Jane had been four. Across the way, her brothers Jack and Jeremy were finishing the roof on the new bunkhouse for the extra help they needed, just in time for roundup. The sounds of their hammers on the cedar shingles echoed across the fields, and more than one of the Red Ruby cows raised her head to watch.

Beside the house, her new sisters-in-law, Victoria and Caroline, were working with her younger brother, Jason, in the garden, bonnets bumping as they discussed something. Victoria had planted a number of herbs and bushes that could be used for medicinal purposes, and she and Caroline were planning to make ointments and salves. Pa and Joshua, her youngest brother, were out among the cows. Pa wanted an accurate count of how many should be taken to market this year.

As Jane and Joy came into the kitchen, Jenny, Jane's closest sister in age, looked up from where she had been about to put bread into the oven to bake. "You have a caller." Her blue eyes were wide.

"I heard," Jane said, heading past her for the door out into the hallway that ran the length of the bottom floor.

Jenny hurried after her, not an auburn hair out of place as she wiped her hands on the apron covering her gingham skirts. "Do you have a suitor?"

Jane counted to five before responding. "No. I don't know why a man would call on me." She kept walking, but both her sisters followed.

Her next closest sister, Joanna, poked her reddish-brown curly-haired head out of the dining room as they passed. Her silver-gray eyes were narrowed. "You have a caller. Are you sweet on someone and never told me?"

Jane scowled at her. "No. Go back to whatever you were doing." She aimed her look at her other sisters as well. "All of you."

Joanna and Jenny turned back to their work with knowing smiles, and Joy sighed as she followed Jenny.

As soon as Jane was sure she didn't have an audience, she took a moment outside the parlor door to smooth back her hair. She had more curls than Jenny did, although they weren't nearly as wild as Joanna's. Yet somehow, her sister managed to keep hers properly bound while Jane's perpetually escaped whatever braids or pins she tried.

She bent and tugged down her skirts to make sure her trousers weren't showing. They were far more practical here on the ranch, but they seemed to scandalize most folks.

What else did Ma always say?

Pinch your cheeks. Lick your lips. Smile. You're a lovely young lady. Don't be afraid to show it.

Jane squeezed her cheeks, ran her tongue over her lips, and pasted on a smile. Then she stepped confidently into the room.

And stuttered to a stop.

It was him-the fancy fellow from Puget City. He had been sitting on the sofa beside Ma, and he surged to his feet at the sight of Jane. The smile that lit his face was brighter than a campfire on a winter's night and warmed her even more.

"Miss Willets," he said, and he bowed. Bowed! To her!

"This is Mr. Alexander Wentworth, Jane," Ma said, glancing between them. Her mother had her own glow about her. She too thought this was a courting kind of call. Jane had no such illusions. Men who could talk in such polished tones didn't come calling on women like her. From what she'd seen, they favored pretty little blondes with dainty hands and high, soft voices.

"Mr. Wentworth," Jane said, moving closer. "What brings you out this way?" Might as well get it over with, even if she found herself gazing overlong into eyes as blue as Puget Sound on a summer's day.

He waited until she'd taken the chair closest to her mother before resuming his own seat. "I was acquainting myself with Puget City when I witnessed you save that runaway team from imminent peril. I've never seen such a display of equestrian skill and courage."

Very likely not. Only Jack and Jeremy could outride her. None of them could outshoot her. And Alexander Wentworth had an odd way of talking, a sort of drawl to the words. He sounded far more educated than the other men in the area, except perhaps her brother Jacob. Was Mr. Wentworth showing off? Trying to impress?

Well, he wasn't the only one who could turn a pretty phrase.

"I merely did what the moment required," Jane said, settling back in the chair. "But what of you, sir? Are you touring our fine area? Perhaps taking in the alpine or maritime glories of the frontier?"

Ma frowned at her, but he merely laughed. "No touring for me, alas. I came West for work."

Ah, that was the reason for the call. She wasn't sure why she was disappointed. It seemed some part of her still hoped Mr. Wentworth had come for her. Someone in Puget City must have mentioned the Jumping J, and he'd decided a woman brave enough to take on a runaway team might be brave enough to hire a tenderfoot.

Jane leaned forward. "Can you ride?"

He blinked but recovered quickly. "My father put me in the saddle when I was five, so I would consider myself suitably skilled."

All her siblings had been riding by four, but she liked his confidence, and the proof of his skills would be easy to judge once she had him on a horse. "Ever herded cattle before?"

He shook his head. "No. Do you herd?"

"I do," she said proudly. "Most of us can herd. With more than one hundred head of cattle, that's a good thing." She glanced at Ma, who was regarding her with an odd look, as if she wasn't sure what Jane was about. True, the hiring generally fell to Pa and Jack, but nothing said she couldn't make a suggestion.

"The bunkhouse should be ready by tomorrow," she told her mother. "Pa and Jack have already started asking around for help with roundup. We might be able to use Mr. Wentworth."

"Oh, I didn't mean…" he started, but Ma held up her hand to stop him.

"Jane's right, Mr. Wentworth. If you'd be willing to ride herd with her and the others, we could use your help. We pay a fair wage, along with room and board. But it would only be for a few weeks to a month, I fear. Do you think that time sufficient for your purposes?"

He shared a look with Ma. What was that about?

"Yes, ma'am," he assured her mother. "It's an inspired solution. If you'd allow me to return to Olympia and explain the situation to my own mother, I'll return tomorrow with my saddle and things."

"His mother," Ma said with a look to Jane. "His widowed mother. I can only admire a man who takes such care of family. Don't you agree, dear?"

Jane glanced between them. Mr. Wentworth had a fatuous smile on his face, and Ma looked as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.

So that was how the land lay. Her mother was giving Mr. Wentworth time to court Jane and convince her to marry him. He really should be warned. Talk about imminent peril!

Then again, the next little while might be more interesting if she let this hand play out.

"Oh, yes," Jane said with a smile of her own. "Family is very important. Welcome to the Jumping J, Mr. Wentworth. I'm sure you'll fit in just fine."

 

Buy Now

Directly from me
Amazon (affiliate link)
Barnes & Noble
Apple Books
Kobo
Draft to Digital
Smashwords
Bookshop.org, benefitting local bookstores

 

Extras

Remember the other books in the Frontier Brides series. Frontier Brides: Taming the West one cowboy at a time.