Spotlight & Giveaway: My Heart Will Find You by Jude Deveraux

Today, HJ is pleased to share with you Jude Deveraux’s new release: My Heart Will Find You

A mail-order bride. A lonely rancher. A portal to the past. Their love refused to stay quiet, echoing across time…

When the world is brought to a standstill in the early days of a global pandemic, Etta Wilmont finds herself suddenly stranded in Kansas City. Desperate to secure a roof over her head, Etta crosses paths with Henry Logan, a lonely older man in need of a caretaker. His invitation for Etta to stay with him seems to be the solution to both their problems—and maybe the spontaneous adventure Etta’s life has been missing.

As Etta and Henry settle into a companionable living arrangement, Etta indulges in Henry’s library. The compelling historical accounts of life in the Midwest soon inspire vivid dreams of Kansas City in the 1870s, dreams in which she’s a mail-order bride, married to a handsome but guarded rancher named Maxwell Lawton.

Haunted by the story unfolding in her mind, Etta realizes her dreams of the past and the familiar faces featured within are starting to have an impact on the present, altering her current reality. Perhaps these dreams are Etta’s chance to finally claim something for herself after so much time spent caring for others. More than anything, Etta wonders if the captivating man she’s falling for while she sleeps might be real, might be out there—true love waiting to be found and which would change both their lives forever.

Enjoy an exclusive excerpt from My Heart Will Find You 

When Etta woke up, her mind was fuzzy, unclear. It made no sense, but she seemed to be standing in a church. It was crudely built, looking like it had been slapped together in a weekend. There were rough pews to her right. When she had trouble turning her head, she realized that she wasn’t fully awake, so she must be dreaming. There was something very tight around her middle. The bed covers?
She heard a voice she recognized and looked toward it. It was her father! He had on an old-fashioned dark suit with a black string tie. With her gone, had he started doing cosplay? He should have let her get the suit cleaned. It was wrinkled and dirty.
He was angrily glaring at Etta, not something he’d ever done before. “Do you or not?” he snapped.
“Do I what?” she asked. “I do think—”
“Those are the words,” he said. “You’re married. Now get out of here.” He turned and walked away.
Bewildered, Etta watched him leave. Married? What does that mean? When someone took her left hand, she was startled, and looked down at it. A male hand was slipping a gold ring onto
her finger. It seemed to go on very slowly. I bet Henry’s questions about why I’m not married made me dream this, she thought.
When the ring was on, she looked up into the dark eyes of a gorgeous man. Not Vogue pretty, but rugged. Unshaved whiskers, square jaw, skin that showed he’d never used sunscreen.
The hand holding hers was as rough as sandpaper, the palm one big callus. He too was wearing an old-fashioned suit.
“Congratulations, boss,” said a man to the side. He was smaller, and he smelled like sweat and horses. Like her father, he was doing cosplay and wearing clothes from a Hollywood Western.
This dream is certainly realistic!
The taller man, the “boss,” her so-called “husband,” moved away from her. Three men, smelly and dirty, surrounded him. They were laughing and congratulating him as they took turns signing a piece of paper on a little table.The boss stepped back, looked at Etta, and held up a pen. It was steel, and there was a bottle of ink she was to dip it into.
“What? No rollerball?” she asked.
The four men stared at her in silent confusion.
I certainly dream authentically, she thought. When she took a step forward, she almost fell.
Heaven help her, but she had on a skirt that nearly touched the floor. How was she supposed to walk in the thing? The men were watching her, so she grabbed the front and walked with all the grace she could muster.
She made it to the table. The paper said Marriage License at the top. Henrietta Lily Wilmont to Maxwell James Lawton.
Etta started to refuse to sign, but it was a dream, so what did it matter?
She signed, then stepped back. “So now I’m a married woman?” She was beginning to think her dream was hilarious. She couldn’t wait to tell Henry. Her unconscious had combined his books and questions into the most vivid dream anyone had ever had.
“Too late to change your mind now,” one of the men said.
He really should take a shower, she thought. And who dreams with smells?
“You got the worst man,” the second one said to Etta. “He’ll put you to work at dawn. Won’t let up until the moon shines bright.”
“Then the real work begins,” the third one said, and they all snickered like pubescent boys.
“Out!” the tall man ordered. “I want that fence repaired by sundown.”
The men backed toward the open door with leering grins on their dirty faces. “Just sundown, boss? I could last longer than that.”
“That’s not what Freida says.”
The three men fell into loud laugher, then scurried out the door as the man took a menacing step toward them.
“I apologize for them,” he said. Etta just blinked at him. What an odd dream. She would have put money on it that if she’d made up a marriage dream, it would be with a man who was madly, passionately, insanely in love with her. Except for when this man put the ring on her finger, he’d stayed several feet away. And now he was looking at her as though sizing her up. There was certainly no love in his eyes. There wasn’t even familiarity. It was like he’d never
met her before.
“Ready?” he asked as he picked up an old leather hat off a pew and put it on.
“Sure,” she said. She was gradually becoming more awake. Or more… She wasn’t sure “awake” was the right description for a dream. More aware of her surroundings. When she again tripped, she looked down at what she was wearing. A long, heavy, dark skirt. The top was as tight as a
sausage casing, but there was a little lace jacket over it. While the outfit was heavy and cumbersome, what was really awful was what she could feel under it. Only a corset could be that tight. Had someone used a tire iron to pull the laces together? As she took a breath, she put her hands at her waist. To her astonishment, her hands weren’t far from being able to encircle
her waist, which was now teeny tiny. Yes, she was in pain, but the corset had achieved what years of going to a gym hadn’t been able to do.
She looked up at the man, her eyes wide.
Maybe he saw some of what she was feeling because he gave a little half smile.
They left the church and at the door, Etta paused. In front of them was a wide street that was paved, if you could call it that, with horse manure, mud, corncobs, trampled rubbish, and she
didn’t want to think about what else. On each side were wooden buildings that looked like a fire waiting to happen. Barbershop, saloon, mercantile, saloon, livery stable, saloon, saloon, saloon.
“I guess people here like to drink,” she said. He cocked his head toward her but didn’t reply.
To the side was a beat-up old f latbed wagon harnessed to two horses. In the back were a couple of trunks. One of them looked like the one from the foot of Ben’s bed. She was incorporating
what she’d seen into her dream.
“All there?” he asked.
She guessed he meant those were her trunks. Wonder what I packed? She nodded.
They went down the steps, and Etta managed to not get entangled in her skirt as she walked to the wagon. She stood there looking at it. How in the world did she get up into it? Her foot went where? Hands where? As she prepared for the climb, she slipped out of the lace shrug. It was too pretty and fragile for wearing in a wooden wagon. The man was behind her. He took the little jacket, lifted the lid on one of the trunks, and carefully laid it inside.
Etta looked back at the wagon that seemed to be impossible to reach.
“Oooh!” she said as the man suddenly put his hands on her little waist, lifted her like she was a child, and set her into the front.
“Usually a man won’t even open a door for me,” she muttered.
He must have heard her because as he got into the other side he gave a smile that was a tiny bit wider than before. He reached into the back and pulled out a roll of canvas. “This is a wedding
gift from Alice.”
She started to ask who Alice was but he seemed to think she knew. She unrolled the cloth. Inside was an umbrella. Correction, a parasol, that was so beautiful Etta could hardly get her breath. The panels on the wire frame were ivory silk, and the edges were embroidered with tiny blue f lowers with green leaves. Cascading from the center were strings of matching f lowers.
Obviously, it had all been done by hand.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered.
For a moment his face seemed to melt from tough to fragile. “I’ll tell my sister you think so.”
His vulnerable look was gone, but it had been there long enough for her to see that he loved his sister. She liked that he had family he cared about. She wrapped the parasol back up and put it in the foot trough.
His face went back to the inscrutable look he’d been wearing. He untied the reins and snapped them to make the horses go. It took only a few feet before Etta realized that riding on a
hard wooden seat down a rutted road wasn’t like on TV. She was tossed to one side, then bounced up and down. If it weren’t for what felt like half a dozen slips under her skirt, her backside would be one big bruise.
He looked at her. “Are you all right?”
“Comfy.” Her teeth clicked together as they went over a pile of fresh horse manure that was on top of old manure. “Nothing like a sweet summer’s day.” She took a breath then coughed
at the smell. Again, he gave a bit of a smile.
Etta grinned broadly. Her family and Lester were so used to her jokes that they paid little attention to them, so it was nice to find someone who appreciated them. This part of the dream
makes sense, she thought. Of course she would put in someone who liked her sense of humor.
Suddenly, a woman walked in front of the wagon. She didn’t look at it, much less give the horse and wagon the right of way. The man pulled back hard on the reins, and the horses did the best they could to halt. But their eight skinny legs twisted around together and they nearly went down. The man stood up, trying to calm the horses and guide them. At the jolting, Etta started to fly forward, but the man grabbed her upper arm. He had reins in one hand, Etta held by the other one. When she came down, she hit the seat so hard her teeth rattled, and she thought she might have cracked her tailbone.
The woman in the road never so much as looked up.
“Damn you, Martha!” he yelled. “You could have been killed!”
She kept walking but turned her head to give him a look of disdain. “You should learn how to drive.”
As the man sat back down, he turned to Etta. “Are you all right?”
She nodded as she stared at the woman. Etta had seen a dozen photos of her. “Martha Logan.”
“No. It’s Martha Garrett.” He snapped the reins to go again.
“Same name as this town.”
“Does she own it?”
“Her husband did, but after they died, she didn’t have much property left.”
“‘They’?”
“Her husband and son were killed in the war.”
Etta wasn’t sure which war he meant, but it couldn’t be one of the two world wars. It must be… “North and South?”
“What other war is there?” he answered, giving her a look of shock.
“Henry and Ben,” she said.
“Who are they?”
“Martha’s husband and son.”
“Her husband was Theodore. I don’t know the boy’s name.”
As they slowly rode down the filthy, fragrant street, Etta looked at the buildings and the people.
Oh for a cell phone to photograph it all! If it were real, that is.

Excerpt. ©Jude Deveraux. Posted by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.
 
 

Giveaway: 1 Print copy of My Heart Will Find You by Jude Deveraux, Open to US residents only

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Meet the Author:

Jude Deveraux is the author of forty-three New York Times bestsellers, and to date, there are more than sixty million copies of her books in print worldwide. Her bestsellers include For All Time, Moonlight in the Morning and A Knight in Shining Armor. She was honored with a Romantic Times Pioneer Award in 2013 for her distinguished career. Jude lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Visit her at https://judedeveraux.com/

Book: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/my-heart-will-find-you-jude-deveraux?variant=40616325382178