Accidental Wife Archives

Jun 21st A Sit Down with CJ Fosdick author of the Accidental Series.

Give a warm welcome to CJ Fosdick, author of accidental Wife and Accidental Stranger.

Pull up a chair, grab a drink of your choice from the cooler, a Chocolate Chip or Peanut Butter cookie from the plate, and let’s find out a little about CJ and her Accidental Series.

CJ what inspired you to write these books?

When Fort Laramie was merely a fur trading post back in the 1830’s, the agent in charge brought his daughter from the East to visit. She enjoyed riding her big black horse, even after promising never to leave the compound without an escort. One day, she slipped away in a fine green riding habit and two soldiers chasing her couldn’t keep up. Horse and rider were never seen again. Or were they?

Ghost stories and superstitions tangle with legends of the old west, but rarely are the sightings documented in official archives, naming credible witnesses. Deep into research for my “Accidental Series,” I toured Ft. Laramie and corresponded for years with the late Sandy Lowry, the long time archivist/librarian of the famous post. Legends like this—and folk tales—are nuggets of gold mined by writers. Some of our best loved historicals, mysteries and fantasies sprout from these nuggets. It was a no-brainer to season The Accidental Wife with the fascinating legend of Ft. Laramie’s galloping green ghost.

Dr. Louis Brechemin, one of my historical characters, actually served as post surgeon in the waning years of military life before the garrison became dispensible and homes were stripped for material or auctioned off to the community. The married family man lived in the designated “surgeon’s house” which stands between the Burt house and Wyoming’s oldest military building, ”Old Bedlam.” Among all the surviving buildings, these three bordering the parade grounds were restored to their 1888 condition more than 20 years after Ft. Laramie was designated a National Historic Monument in 1938. Old Bedlam reminded me of a white-porched mansion still seen in the deep south, while the other two homes for married officers replicated frame homes with eyebrow porches found in old neighborhoods like those in my hometown, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Jessica, my heroine in The Accidental Wife learns about the ghost legend from the surgeon’s teenage daughter, Lillian, while the doctor examines the leg of a crippled puppy. Lillian defends her belief in the legend when her father counters with his opinion. “The monotony of life on a post with no real commission is diverted by baseball games, poker, and brewing up ghost sightings.”

His wife and daughter remind him that the mysterious legend…and subsequent sightings…are documented in post records. (Still kept in Ft. Laramie archives.) The broken-hearted father of the missing rider eventually gave up a long search and returned home. No trace of the girl or her horse was ever found. But every seven years in Ft. Laramie history, a girl in a long green habit with a jeweled quirt was spotted in the area, riding a swift black horse. Old medical records detail a soldier’s claim that he was struck by the riding quirt of a girl in green as she galloped by on a black horse. Bloodied in the attack, he had managed to pluck a gold button—the kind you might find on a fancy riding dress.

Tell us a little about ACCIDENTAL WIFE:

When Jessica Brewster inherits a mysterious teacup, she finds rubbing it transports her back to 1886, trading places with her look-alike great grandmother—wife to Mitch, her ancestor’s magnetic first husband and mother to his charming young daughter. True love, a gypsy, and her ancestor’s troubled brother amp up the charade she plays until she can find a portal back. But is her future in the past?

A Golden Quill finalist and Top 10 Finisher for Author and Book in a P & E Reader’s Poll.

A peek between the pages of Accidental wife.

He touched my face with both hands, feathering his fingers across my forehead, into the wells of my eyes, over my nose and cheekbones, like a blind man needing to know who stood before him. I tried not to stiffen at his touch, willing myself not to blink, not to release the fresh tears that had begun to pool. He collared my throat with his long fingers and ran a thumb over my lips. “I want my wife back. Come back to me, Mitawin,” he whispered.

The word on the teacup; the hallmark of my deceit. Our eyes locked, and I felt my throat closing and my knees begin to quiver. For a few seconds his grip tightened around my throat, and I clamped my eyes shut with a fleeting thought. Yes, take my breath…end this tormenting deception. When he suddenly released me, I could see the pain twisting his face. He turned away and rubbed his chin against his shoulder, bracing both arms on a porch railing.

“My shirt looks good on you, Jess,” he said hoarsely. “You always did have a thing for my shirts.”

I cleared my throat. “You can’t sleep out here,” I said after a long silence. “Come to bed.”

His shoulders flinched. “Is that an invitation?”

“I only mean…you can’t be comfortable sleeping in that chair.”

“Are you still wearing those black things?”

I didn’t answer. What has that got to do with anything? We both started by the sudden hoot of a nearby owl, and like the volume turned up on ear phones, I was suddenly aware of other night sounds: crickets, wind rustling through the sage, my heart bumping in my chest.

A bit about ACCIDENTAL STRANGER:

Jessica Brewster is being watched…and things go missing from the remote Wyoming home she shares with her toddler. In a freak accident, she shoots the bearded thief stalking her before she recognizes the mesmerizing green eyes that belong to the only man she ever loved.

Has Mitch bridged time to find her? In a race to save his life and change hers forever, she takes him into her home and heart. But his memory loss and puzzling clues curry doubt and expose mystery and danger. Is he truly her son’s father or an irresistible stranger in her arms?

Finalist for A Golden Quill and a 2018 Rone Award.

A peek between the page of Accidental Stranger.

I screamed as the gun exploded in my hand and fell to the ground. The bear moving toward Scout dropped, and I raced to scoop up my son before he toppled into the cold stream. Cradling my whimpering child, I ventured closer and could see at once that it was no bear I shot. A man in a bearskin poncho lay on his side. A mass of dark matted hair covered the side of his face that wasn’t blooming with blood, running down his cheek, pooling in his ear and staining his thick beard.

“Is he, is he dead?” I whispered.

Chuck fumbled for a pulse and we all started when the man groaned and his eyes fluttered open.

Green! His eyes were green. The fear in them registered with me as he searched our faces. When his eyes met mine, his jaw twitched. A flash of memories washed over me and my heart began to thump wildly. I set Scout down when my knees began to buckle and I thought I was going to be sick. My legs crumpled beneath me as I sagged in the snow and my bare fingers reached out to staunch the warm dripping blood.

So red against the white snow. His eyes, so…green. Every shade in a spectrum of emotion raced through my memory; joy, frustration, anger…love. I knew only one man who owned those eyes.

He had come back to me. I shot the only man I ever loved.

Buy links:

Amazon Barnes&Noble iTunes The Wild Rose Press

About the author:

As a native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, now living on a country hilltop in Rochester, Minnesota, Cj nourished two major dreams: Riding and Writing. Thirty years training and teaching children to ride her horses satisfied the first—with time squeezed out to write fiction and non-fiction published in magazines, newspapers and anthologies. It was a jump-start to a novel agenda that produced Cj’s first books. The Accidental Wife and The Accidental Stranger both became serial award-winners out of the gate. With an empty nest after 4 children and an empty horse barn, Cj lives with her computer wrangler hub, a white schnauzer and a long list of incubating novels and stories that tap into her favorite genres: Romance, Suspense, Historicals and Time Travel. Follow her adventures in a monthly newsletter, facebook, twitter, and cjfosdick.com where you can find links to all.