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THE BAREFOOT BRIDE is a Western mail-order bride story, where each party neglects to tell the other about their children--who aren't at all happy to become part of a blended family. Patch, a spoiled brat who's only twelve years old in THE BAREFOOT BRIDE finally wins Ethan Hawke's love as a grown-up lady in OUTLAW'S BRIDE.
THE BAREFOOT BRIDE
Dell / ISBN 0-440-21129-8 / 1991
Widower Seth Kendrick, a doctor in rural Montana, needs a wife to civilize his rambunctious, tomboy daughter Patricia (known as Patch), so he advertises for one. Widow Molly Gallagher needs a home for her children Whit and little Nessie and decides to accept Seth sight unseen. The couple wants to make the best of things, but the children intend to sabotage the effort. Patch opens the hostilities by pushing Molly into the Missouri River as soon as her steamboat docks; Whit retaliates by shoving Seth in after her. The youngsters' hostility doesn't prevent the newlyweds from rapidly registering their mutual attraction, although Molly is occasionally uneasy about her secretive bridegroom.pk Seth is extremely reticent about his past, seems to be the only man around who refuses to wear a gun, would rather be called a coward than stand up and fight and sometimes stays out all night, offering up an excuse that wouldn't fool his horse, let alone Molly.
OUTLAW'S BRIDE
Dell / ISBN 0-440-21278-2 / 1993
Patricia "Patch" Kendrick arrives in Oak County, Tex., from Fort Benton, Mont., to claim Ethan Hawk, a man who jokingly promised to marry her eight years earlier when he was a 25-year-old running from the law and she was the precocious 12-year-old daughter of a man who befriended him. Patch has transformed herself from a tomboy into a well-bred woman, but Ethan's position remains largely unchanged. Though he was eventually caught and jailed for murder, he has been stalked since his release by the father of a woman he allegedly raped. Ethan swears he found Merielle after the rape and that he killed in self-defense. Merielle can't shed light on those events because since the trauma she has had the mind of a child. Ethan pretends he's not in love with Patch as she attempts to clear his name in a manner that demonstrates that under the veneer of high society remains a core of will and assertiveness.
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