A road-weary gunslinger with a ruthless reputation, he focuses only on his next target—and his next payday. That is, until a young boy offers Chance everything he owns—a piece of string, a harmonica, and a bent penny—if he'll save his sister from a couple of thugs. Chance agrees, only to discover that the beautiful, fierce young woman in need of rescue is actually the very person he's been hunting: his next mark.But after he saves her, Lillian Madison awakens in him long-buried dreams and possibilities. Facing the demons of his past, Chance is forced to question his next move. Dare he risk everything by following his heart … and trust that the road to redemption begins with Lillian?Originally appeared in the print anthology To Tame a Texan, under the title Long Stretch of Lonesome.

    Sarah McGowanHer roots were deep in the Texas soil. But her secret shameful love for her sister's husband kept her from happiness.Pride and their love of the Texas land threw them together in an unlikely marriage. Then, as unexpectedly as a spring flood, long pent-up passion exploded in a storm that was to consume them both...

    After all, a man whose livelihood was tied to the ivory-handled six-shooters at his hips couldn't allow emotions and memories to dull his senses. But seeing her again had brought it all back: the passion, the hunger, the confusion. Nothing had changed, and yet, when he looked into the face of her child--everything had changed. Abby needed a man to match her fire, and he would be that man. He would know his son, teach him and be a father to him. Now if he could just convince Abby to believe in him again... and the future that was meant to be!Return to Whitehorn, Montana--where legends are begun and love lasts forever beneath the big sky...

    Since the day when outlaws ravaged Garret's family homestead, he has shunned attachments, pouring his passion into his paintings of the unforgiving western wilderness. But as Garret braves the dangerous trail with Ashleen and the children, his heart begins to thaw. When evil forces threaten, will he ride away or make a home with this patchwork family he’s come to love?

    Though Xander, Will and Kit may not be legitimate in the eyes of the aristocracy, their mother made sure that they each received a gentleman's education and knew how to make their way in the world...Despite being knighted for saving the Prince Regent's life, Sir Alexander Jones will never truly be accepted by the nobility. But if he's to find his long lost brother, Xander must win the first willing heiress he can find— and obtain the funds he needs to search London's darkest corners.Slandered and denied her rightful inheritance by the machinations of her unscrupulous uncle, Cleo Spencer has been living on a farm with only a meager stipend to support her and her brother. Only by marrying can Cleo access her funds and provide her younger brother the life he deserves.

    Although the proud Yankee was prepared to face any hardship on her journey to Fort Bridger, she was horrified to learn that single women weren't welcome on any wagon train. Desperate to cross the plains, Ashley decided to pay the first bachelor willing to pose as her husband. Then the fiery redhead came across a former Johnny Reb in the St. Joe's jail, and she couldn't think of any man she'd rather marry in name only. But out on the rugged trail, Tanner MacTavish quickly proved too intense, too virile, too dangerous for her peace of mind. And after Tanner stole a passionate kiss, Ashley knew that, even though the Civil War was over, a new battle was brewing -- a battle for the heart that she might be only too happy to lose.

    Living alone in her father's house in a dying Oregon mining town, she had put away her girlish dreams and prayed for something more practical: that someone would answer her ad for a blacksmith to run the shop that was her father's legacy to her--and her only hope of holding onto her homestead. But the exhausted stranger who collapsed in her front yard looked as dangerous as the devil himself... and he was far more dangerous than Chloe could imagine....along comes a strangerTravis McGuire was a man who seemed to have no past and no future. He was doomed to the life of a wanderer and knew that his desire for Chloe had to be contained. But he hadn't anticipated finding a woman like Chloe--a woman willing to look his past in the face, to risk everything she had for the one true love she'd never thought she could find.

    Joletta tries to track down the formula through journals written by her ancestress, Violet Fossier, who in 1854 made a grand tour of Europe. As Joletta follows Violet's itinerary across the continent, the story goes back in time, to nineteenth- century Europe and a scandalous love affair that is intimately bound up in the mystery of the perfume. In the present Joletta finds herself attracted to--and suspicious of--Rone Adamson, a Southern playboy whose astounding knowledge of perfume makes Joletta wary. Yet his chivalrous charms prove too much for her scruples, and Jolettta succumbs to her dubious white knight, even as danger swirls around them....A Main Selection of the Doubelday Book ClubFrom the Paperback edition.

    Now, John Clayton brazenly sets out to introduce Emma to the art of love. Original.

    But he gets an eyeful when the pretty sister lifts her skirts to adjust the little silver derringer strapped to her thigh ... So begins this sexy, rollicking ride through the gambling halls and sinful streets of 1880s San Francisco, where two "crooked hearts" discover that love is the most dangerous -- and delicious -- game of all.

    In an agony of torment, she drove him away to save his life. She had tried to forget him by marrying another man. But now, ten years later, he had returned, a fierce stranger determined to make her his slave.His pride demanded satisfaction—in flesh...To his enemies he was El Capitán Luiz Quintano. The son of a Spanish grandee and an Aztec princess, Tonatiuh was now a military commander. He had learned to guard his heart even as he gave his body with a passion born of vegneance and hate. He thought he could destroy her. But the love she gave was real, a maelstrom of fury, remorse, and desire that would engulf them both in its tidal depths.

    John detested. A mercenary, a man with no morals, a renegade. But Kitt was reckless and daring, cautious and calculating – and he was captain of one of the fastest ships on the ocean. And so she bargained with the devil – on his terms. In exchange for transporting her cotton and turning it into medical supplies and ammunition for her beloved Confederacy, she was to let him ravish her for every shipment he delivered.

    Bleeding and disoriented, and dressed in Union blue, he seems to think he actually fought in the Battle of Fredericksburg nearly 150 years ago. Believing him to be an injured reenactor, she takes him to the hospital, but though his body heals, his mind is still certain he is not from the present.Maybe she should have written him off as crazy, but there is something about Carter Lindsey that draws her, something in his eyes, in his touch ... in the way she wants to do anything to help him.Swept up in a passion she's never before known, Shelby may not understand what has happened to Carter, but she feels sure of one thing: if she has to defy time itself, they are meant to be together.

    At twenty-three, her steady job and safe engagement seem very dull. If she is to inject a little excitement into her life, she realises, now is the time to do it.But the excitement lying in wait for Harriet is beyond even her wildest ambitions. Answering a job advertisement to assist a world-famous actress, Harriet finds herself plunged into an intense and secret world of sexual obsession - playing an unwitting part in a very private drama, but discovering in the process more about her own desires than she had ever dreamed possible...

    Part Apache brave and part Mexican grandee, Cade has a past and a secret. But he possesses the power and passion to command all in his path.Lily welcomes Cade into her struggle against treachery and terror—and discovers a love worth risking everything to keep.