Help A Bitch Out

HaBO: Train Bridge Collapse

This HaBO is from Michelle, who wants to find this American historical romance:

I’m looking for some help finding the name of a book that I read in the early 90s. It may have been published in the mid to late 80s as it was part of my Mom’s book stash.

The setting is the American Old West when railroads were still fairly new-ish. The male main character may have been either raised by an Indigenous tribe or part/all Indigenous himself. I have no real memory of the female main character.

Romance blossoms but is thwarted when the hero discovers he is a father and has a son who was born to a rich woman that he had a brief liaison with 2-3 years prior. Rich woman is now a widow and uses the son to attempt to control the hero. Rich widow, hero, and son board a train to go somewhere (out east?). Along the way, a train bridge collapses leaving the train dangling over a cliff. The hero saves his son by grabbing his arm and dragging him through a window. I think the son’s name is Julian/Julienne which the child pronounces Joo-len. During the rescue the hero coaxed the child close enough to grab by telling him they’re going to go find some butterflies which the child pronounces “udderflies”.

I bet someone has read this one!

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  1. DiscoDollyDeb says:

    I was almost positive this was an old-skool Rebecca Brandewyne romance—but I’ve checked the likeliest candidates (THE OUTLAW HEARTS and LOVE, CHERISH ME) and the details don’t quite match up. I know THE OUTLAW HEARTS involves a train, but not sure if there’s an accident.

  2. Betsydub says:

    I’m away from my bookshelves right now, but I just wanted to throw this out there, if someone wanted to search. Jo Goodman’s “Dennehy Sisters” series (5 books) definitely had a lot of train riding back & forth from NYC to the West, & I vaguely recall at least one crash. Be careful because a couple of those titles got changed when republished later. But maybe this series was from the 90’s?
    TIA if someone checks out this nebulous lead.

  3. Gloriamarie Amalfitano says:

    Maybe Shirley Busbee????

  4. Carol S. says:

    Just Googled “udderfies” but except for something related to Sandra Boynton (remember her?) nada. At least the search will mess with the minds of my corporate overlords if they see it in my search history.

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