Malicious mischief

the long version

Delia Eastman returns home from teachers' college with two goals: find a teaching position and sidestep her mother's insistence on finding her a husband. But employers don't care for women who are smarter than they. Neither do suitors. As she struggles to find her place, she discovers her sleepy riverboat town has turned into a powder-keg of rivalry between the steamships and the railroads. Increasingly violent vandalism on the railroad brings her face-to-face with Endy Webster, a handsome trainmaster whose investigation into the crimes leads him to the door of a prominent steamship owner-- Delia's father. As Delia tries to clear her father's name, she keeps tangling with Endy. He's intelligent. He's charming. And he's guarding secrets. Thinking he might know more than he's telling, Delia reluctantly agrees to partner with him to solve the crimes. With the vandalism becoming deadly, they'll need every scrap of intelligence and logic to stay alive. Working together may not be their first choice, but it might be their last.