Texas Women of Spirit Series by Angela C. Castillo

Zillia Bright never dreamed she’d be orphaned at sixteen and left to care for her baby brother and Papa’s farm. With only a mule and a hundred-year-old shotgun, she must fight to protect what’s hers. Countless dangers lurk on the Bastrop Texas riverside. Zillia must rely on the help of her best friends, Soonie and Wylder, to hold her world together. With Zillia’s struggles come unexpected miracles, and proof that God might just listen to the prayers of a river girl.

A clean, Christian read with a romantic element. It's 1890. Called by God, nineteen-year-old Soonie Eckhart travels to an illegal Comanche and Kiowa settlement in North Texas to become a teacher for the children in hiding. Despite her Comanche roots, she finds many in the group, including a volatile young man named Lone Warrior, refuse to accept her. After a chance encounter in the hills with a band of dangerous men, Soonie must draw on the deepest parts of her faith and courage to survive.