1913, Albuquerque. She pours drinks to survive. He writes the laws that could erase her.
At the Red Lantern saloon on the south side of town, “Scarlet” is the woman men come to forget with — sharp-tongued, painted pretty, and safely hidden behind a name that is not her own. Underneath the red silk and smoky smiles is Alice Wilder, a tired soul who has learned to want less just to make it through the night.
Across town, Henry McCoy sits in the front pew of church beside his father — the mayor who is determined to “clean up” Albuquerque by shutting down places like the Red Lantern. Fresh from Eastern schooling and buried in ordinances and ink, Henry is supposed to be the future of the town… not a man who cannot stop thinking about the saloon girl whose touch feels like a memory.
When a new law gives the council thirty days to decide whether the Red Lantern lives or dies, twin souls are pushed onto a collision course. Scarlet, Sadie, and the other girls must decide whether to stand up in a hostile room and say, “We were here.” Henry must choose between his father’s approval and his own conscience — and admit that this is not the first lifetime he has failed the woman in front of him.
As train whistles echo across the desert, lines are drawn between north and south, church and saloon, family duty and the fierce pull of a love that refuses to stay neatly in its place. In a world that only offers half-choices, Scarlet and Henry must finally do what their souls have avoided for lifetimes: choose themselves, even if it means walking away from each other.
Frontier Flames (Journey Through Time: A Twin Flame Saga, Volume IX) is a bittersweet Western-era twin flame novella that blends romance, reincarnation, and spiritual growth.
