Status Updates From Only In My Arms (Dennehy Si...

Uncle killed himself in jail. Anna lost sight & beauty from cellar gunshot wine explosion. Others found guilty. Ryder cleared. Rennie took map Mary provided & found vein of silver & rail route. Mary pregnant, they are setting up ranch near Flagstaff. His money bought land; her money bought livestock & labor.

They arrive for dinner & Uncle points gun at them and herds them to cellar. He puts Anna & Lt in there also, pushing them down the stairs. Ryder convinces Anna to confess details of the plot. Then they started to break wine to cause Uncle to come running to protect his wine. Ryder subdues Uncle just before Jay Mac & family arrive to help.

Anna is lovers with the promoted Lt Rivers. The 5 men that survived the raid were all transferred out of Fort Union. They went to Ryder's uncle for help. He is dismayed and feeling like he has been played by Hamilton. They are plotting for Uncle Wilson to cajole Anna w/ Lt. into a confession in front of hidden witnesses.

After Ryder returned seriously wounded from a fall, he leg was infected and he became feverish. Mary tended his wound, then reopened it to get out the infection. Jarred found them and brought medicines from Maggie that helped Ryder recover. Then they went to the mine to get help from Rennie to go to Washington and follow Anna.

Ryder realizes he left their clothes somewhere along the trail back after the wedding.

Mary & Ryder had a silent symbolic wedding ceremony. She met his family and they feasted & danced, then they returned to the cave. She was not blindfolded. He is allowing her to look at the maps while they talk about the canyon incident.

Ryder is taking Mary out of the cave to marry her. No info about his thought processes. Jay Mac and Moira were captured by Chiricahua when they went out to inspect rail line.

On wagon train, Anna drugs him while caravan attacked & claims he raped her. He is jailed on treason & sentenced to hang. Gets Mary to visit him in her habit and he uses her to escape & forces her to go with him. He holds her captive in a remote cave for 2 weeks. They don't talk about anything meaningful the entire time.

Mary met Ryder at the swimming pond near her family's summer home. She was in distress, he held her. She is leaving the sisterhood. Ryder went to Fort Union, where he holds himself apart. During ball Anna Leigh makes play for him and he taunts her. She is riding out with wagon train next morning.

"Because you have always been part of me," he said. "From the beginning. Not from the moment we met, but from the moment we were. There has been a place for you in my heart, under my skin."

Declarations of love from hero/heroine were, swooooon.

More Buddy read quotes and comments - https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

He was a man with roots in two worlds, she thought, part of both, belonging in neither. "Where is it that you find peace?" she asked.
Ryder opened his eyes and looked at Mary steadily. The serenity of her features masked the ferocity of her temperament... his warrior angel. "In your arms," he said, as though the answer were profoundly simple. "Only in your arms.

I am starting to wonder why I have been avoiding Westerns for so long. Really lovely read.

"Now don't flirt with me anymore," he said. "I can make you hurt a lot worse than you can make me. " Ryder only hoped she would believe him

I am loving this book. Hero and heroine together are hitting all my snark dry humor & female agency sweet spots.
For more of my comments and quotes (I'm quoting the hell out of this book) https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

"You're not like anyone else here," she told him.
Ryder was not particularly flattered by her observation. Not only did it have the easy comfort of a prepared speech , but there were men at Fort Union he admired. Not being like anyone else wasn't always a compliment.

Buddy Reading this, for more quotes & comments thru ch3 https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...