The Prairie Rose Stories

Miles Apart

Urged by a trusted friend, Molly Winstead agrees to accept a passenger for her trip from California to Minnesota.  She is unnerved when her intended fellow traveler is the one person she had hoped never to see again after their humiliating one-time meeting.   Molly is a respected, energetic, self-sufficient librarian who models her life after “The Plan.”  She abhors situations out of her control.  BJ Kendall is precisely that.
     Pro-golfer BJ Kendall, whose face is familiar to millions, knows his way around a golf course but cannot see his way out of a well-guarded secret.  Taking a trip with an opinionated woman who fills both his days and his dreams pushes that hidden place dangerously close to the edge.  He knows Molly wonders why he slams conversational doors, but telling her the truth would end more than the lie he has lived for so many years.
     In less than a week, these two relative strangers realize that rather than becoming friends, they are truly miles apart.  Secrets and attitudes clash in the age-old struggle between love and truth.
> Note: Originally a stand-alone title, Miles Apart became the prequel to the Prairie Rose stories.

Uncharted Territory

Hopes fly high in stalwart Prairie Rose, North Dakota: the population has increased by two!  However, few in town realize that the newcomers—hailed as Dr. Alexander Johanson and the Rev. Victoria Dahlmann along Main Street—knew each other as Zan and Tori in a long-buried tempestuous relationship.   Floundering deep in the uncharted territory of resurrected love, the doctor and the minister struggle to launch professional lives which are entrenched in conflicting passions and goals.

Hidden Crossing

It has taken Prairie Rose, North Dakota, 24 years for rumors and truth about two of their own to settle into silence.   With Cate Jones and Luke Larson now well established along Main Street as vital participants in this town’s life and livelihood, everyone shares in the joy when their wedding is announced.
     With the new Meadowlark Trail gaining popularity, and now the reopening of the town's golf course, Prairie Rose's charms are known to a wider world.  New faces aren't quite as newsworthy as they once were.  But one stranger comes to town with a hidden agenda that could significantly shake up Cate and Luke’s plans . . .
      Sometimes, dreams we never dreamed come true.

Storm Path

Al and Joy Jenkins' relationship began as love-at-first-sight and remains, nearly 30 years later, undimmed and rock-solid.   They had believed this was true of their friends' marriage, too.  But when hurricane-strength trouble blows Frank and Helen Wilson off course, Al and Joy must guard the pillars supporting their own love.   Nothing is safe in the path of a storm.

Ripple Effect

Every July for over 40 years, crowds throng to Crosby’s famous Threshing Show—old friends reunite, and new friends find common ground.   This year, three people cross paths amid all the hustle-and-bustle in this little North Dakota town . . .
     Zeke aches to fill a hole from his past.  When life turned ugly for the Eden family,  Zeke interrupted his best-selling mystery-writing career to co-create a cookbook with his mom, Haze.  Soup's On in Raven Crowley's Kitchen compiles the incongruously soothing recipes which Zeke’s hero cooks when he’s not creating mayhem for bad guys.  But comfort food cannot ease the pain Zeke and Haze feel, even as they sign books on Crosby’s Main Street.
      Hélène seeks to fuel a hope for her future.    She sometimes thinks that if she could find a high enough hill she could catch a glimpse of her old life 30 miles away in Prairie Rose—back when she was plain-old-Helen.  But it’s the future that she can’t quite imagine.   None of what prompted her to leave friends and family behind several years ago has changed.    Frank’s still unrepentant for what he did to their marriage, and Blyss—the “other woman”—is still around.
      Eddie longs to find a home in the right-here, right-now present.  He’s homeless in Chicago, but caught a taste of true family in action in Prairie Rose several years ago.    Prairie Rose is only a blip on the map, but it's where the most important person in Eddie’s topsy-turvy world lives a good life, thanks to a difficult but wise decision Eddie made several years ago.
      Sometimes after trouble drops like a rock into a life's calm pool, friends and family can’t help.    It takes a stranger to help a person shift from focusing on that stone to appreciating the shimmering, lingering ripples.