Life isn't the bright future Maggie imagined when she married Justin Bailey on the spur of the moment three years before. His lack of integrity and ambition, and his frequent infidelities and physical abuse make the marriage impossible. When Maggie follows her friend's suggestion and she move onto her friend's widowed brother's ranch to work as his cook and housekeeper, Justin tracks her down there. When he shows up at the ranch requesting Maggie give him money to feed the monkey on his back, he causes her to fall down the stairs and she delivers their second child, the culmination of Justin's brutal rape, prematurely. In his inebriated panic to leave the scene of the accident, Justin tears across the desert like a maniac and crashes his car into a ravine, leaving Maggie a widow. When Maggie falls in love with her employer, Todd will not allow their relationship to develop out of loyalty to his lifelong friend Craig, whom he discovers loves Maggie as well. Her life appears on hold until an escaped convict comes into the picture and Maggie finds herself knocking at death's door. When Craig realizes that Todd loves Maggie, and Maggie loves Todd, he steps aside and encourages Todd to marry her. Is the red sky of the Arizona sunset an indication that there will be clear sailing ahead for her after she and Todd are married and he adopts her daughters?
About the Author: Growing up in the isolation afforded from living in the shadow of Oak Creek Canyon in Arizona during the later forties and fifties, the fourth of seven children, Melva found ample time in which to develop her creative side. Her creativity manifested itself at an early age in the form of drawings and stories made up on the spur of the moment for younger siblings as well as local children she often babysat. Her imagination was fertile during a time when girls played with hand drawn paper dolls, or those cut from the McCall's magazines. Having developed a love for the written word as a youngster, she carried that love into adulthood. When she enrolled in a creative writing class, her only formal training in writing, in order to quell the symptoms of boredom introduced by an empty nest, she activated the love she'd kept bridled throughout her life. Like Grandma Moses with her late blooming career in art, Melva has decided it's time to dust off her creative processes and bring her lifelong ambition as an author to fruition by publishing her stories and novels.