The Third Installment of the Route 66 Series. An overall fast paced and beautifully written novel set place in the early 1900s, including a young woman with hidden secrets named Mary Lee and her baby on the way. After receiving word of her father's death, Mary Lee felt heartbroken enough, but after her husband Bobby is murdered in an alley way because of a gambling problem, she feels no more ties where she is. After spending several days traveling on a bus to arrive at the Motor Court, her father's pride and joy, she didn't receive the welcome she was expecting. Same old Drunken Mother she left behind as soon as she could to escape the embarrassment she caused Mary Lee. Dolly, her mother, fought her tooth and claw when she tossed out the leeches who were only using Dolly for her money. Frank Pierce, a man who played her mother to try and uproot the Motor Court from Mary Lee, was a burden from the start of her arrival. Rude, mean and nasty, he made her work of rebuilding it seem impossible, and Jake Ramaro held a hatred to that man for every nasty word he called her. After she found Eli, a thirteen year old boy who was run off from the ranch he tried to find work at in her wash-house, Mary Lee took to him and graciously accepted his help as her pregnancy kept her from the heavy lifting. Reconnecting with a childhood friend, Trudy, she never expected her friend to find love and solace with Deke. As Mary Lee fights off Bobby's father who's destined to take her child, one of his hands, sets out to have Mary Lee and her baby killed to get the ranch. Suffering from a shot to the shoulder, Deke and Jake find her just in time, and she makes recovery at home. Within days of her getting home and beginning to recover, Jake and her wed, and soon after the baby is born. But more shock erupt when it's learned Jake is related to Bobby's father by blood, giving him part ownership of the ranch. Mary Lee and Jake move to the ranch with two kids and Eli, where they finally find love forever in an unexpected place. Trudy and Deke became owners of the Motor Court, but sold it after five years when Trudy gets pregnant again.
