Elsinore, Wyoming is ranching country, where people are scarce, cattle plentiful. World War II affects everyone, including a rancher's son dead in a B-17 over Germany. Pilot Fritz Harsch's younger brother Evan yearns to enlist and finish his brother's work, but he can't. A badly thrown baseball took out his eye in a high school game years ago. Draft boards don't want even capable men wearing an eyepatch.
Abby Nicholls waits tables in Elsinore's One & Only Café. An orphan, she is quiet, observant, and loves rancher Evan Harsch. On a whim, she makes a wish on a gravy boat she is polishing that looks like a magic lantern. It's a simple wish: Abby wants something good to happen to her and Elsinore. The town is far from war, but war came anyway, and people are hurting. Abby laughs off her impulsive gesture, but things start to happen...
Autorentext
Carla Kelly is the author of 50 novels and three non-fiction works, as well as numerous short stories and articles. She is the recipient of two RITA Awards from Romance Writers of America for Best Regency of the Year; two Spur Awards and several honorable mentions from Western Writers of America; three Whitney Awards from Storymakers; a Career Achievement Award from Romantic Times; and a Lifetime Achievement Award from Latter-day Saints in Publishing, Media and the Arts.A historian, Carla's jobs include medical public relations, feature writer/columnist for a North Dakota daily newspaper, university professor, and ranger/historian in the National Park Service at Fort Laramie NHS, and Fort Union Trading Post NHS. She worked for the North Dakota Historical Society as a contract researcher.Interest in the Napoleonic Wars on land and sea has led to numerous novels about the Royal Navy and British Army. Carla has written novels set in the West during the Indian Wars, and in the early twentieth century focusing on her interest in ranching and mining. Readers might also enjoy her Spanish Brand series, set in 18th century New Mexico, where ranches struggle to survive in a dangerous territory as Spanish power declines.