Cowboys and Kisses — Karin Kallmaker

A one-way stage ticket to the frontier leaves a young woman penniless and alone in Long Grass, Wyoming. With no other hope than to survive another day, she takes up the only profession open to her. Years later she encounters the cowboy she can love, and her first taste of pleasure - and happiness.Cowboys, however, are born to wander, and their kisses are as brief as the lives of young women without family or means. Accepting that her days will be numbered too few, Darlin' escapes into her scribblings where her dreams of freedom can soar over the limitless prairie. When she recognizes her own truth and a chance for love in the longing gaze of a townswoman, will she finally find kisses she can trust?Two determined women in a hostile world save themselves — and each other — in a lyric, sensual love story of the American West as only Karin Kallmaker can tell.Sexy, engrossing stuff, in a life that seems so perilous until Darlin finally finds solid, safe ground. Description of the landscape was great, made me long to visit Big Sky country again. – Reader emailThat reading this gave me great pleasure will not surprise anyone who is familiar with Ms. Kallmaker's work, however, what I did not anticipate was that I would be so moved by how she illuminated the realities that most women endured in this time period. It was impossible to not feel my heart ache for plight of the main characters and yet so, so satisfying and cathartic to see that they were allowed to have their happy ending. - Goodreads