In London, her father remarried a woman who was a really stiff, proper lady and taught Anne to be just like her. When Anne is forced to return to where she grew up, there, she reunites by chance with her childhood friend, Cordelia.Vincent Darington, Cordelia’s brother, was not close in age with Anne so he did not hang out with her, but he always liked to tease her and have her tease him back. He is surprised by the change in her, as he remembered a spirited child who loved to laugh, and now all he sees is an empty shell, showing no emotion whatsoever.They unavoidably run into each other a lot and he keeps teasing Anne to see if she will bite. And to his delight, he seems to be the only person she loses her temper with. She is of course frustrated that he seems to be the only man immune to her charms.When they all head for London, Anne will realize that none of the gentlemen truly sees her like Vincent.But now that she had pushed him away so many times, he seemed to have moved on. How will she show him her true feelings?

    

    Former Texas Ranger Emmett Strong seems to be just the man Benficklin’s town fathers are looking for, once they’re satisfied that his Chinese wife, Li, is “sufficiently civilized.” But Benficklin doesn’t want to pay a deputy. That leaves Emmett’s sidekick, Juanito, with little choice but to take his own bride, the former saloon girl Geneve, up the road to Santa Angela, looking for honest work in a crooked town.Reputations aside, it turns out that Benficklin—not Santa Angela—is the town with the next scandal on its hands. Only days after Emmett’s arrival, he steps out first thing in the morning to find a dozen men standing in the middle of the street, all in a dither over the ravaged, scantily clad body of a young, murdered Mexican girl who’s been left lying there in the dirt. Initial indications suggest hard-drinking cowboy Quirt Langdon may have done the dirty work.It doesn’t take long, however, for Emmett to sense that things aren’t exactly as they appear. Fort Concho’s Captain Roderick Prentiss seems peculiarly interested in what is clearly a civilian case. The debonair—if somewhat eccentric—gambler Nate Chaffin, who has taken up residence in Santa Angela, gives the impression that he knows things he’s not telling. And to top it all off, Benficklin’s mayor and first lady end up assassinated in their own backyard.While local officials pressure Emmett to hastily hang either a suspect or a scapegoat, honor drives the former Ranger to seek true justice for the poor murdered girl, as well as for the mayor and his wife. Ill-tempered townsfolk, pilfered evidence, and somebody taking potshots at him and his wife make Emmett wonder whether he’ll live to unravel the mystery or become the next corpse folks find in the dusty streets of Benficklin