But still, she can't help thinking that something about this strong, silent farmer could be the key to leaving her troubled past behind...and making a worthy wager with her heart.

    and an adversary.Ace Keegan has returned to No Name, too late to enact a rightful vengeance on his most hated enemy. The man who put a hole in Ace's life is dead, leaving a daughter behind to run the family enterprise. Though proud and strong as well as beautiful, Caitlin is caught off guard when Ace's calculated anger inadvertently destroys her good name. But Ace Keegan is a man of honor, determined to make amends by marrying the enchanting lady he wronged—and to nurture patience and love the light she guards in her damage heart until it blazes with the power of a thousand suns.

    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...

    Instead she learned that she has been duped again by the cowboy who made her his mail-order bride. He died, leaving her with no money, nowhere to go, and no resources but her own ingenuity. Then she learned about the Lodestar Ranch and its owner, Tyler Hollins.Besides a lifetime of painful memories, Tyler had his hands full with immediate problems. Half his cattle were lost during the worst winter on record and his cowhands were about to quit if he couldn’t find a decent cook. Libby Ross fit the bill. She had never seen a man so attractive with such a sour disposition. But she sensed desire behind the wall Ty erected to keep everyone at a distance . . . a wanting so fierce it nearly broke her heart.They locked horns from the outset, but they could fight each other, or fight together to see their dreams come true . . .

    Though she and the six-year-old Graciela get off to a rocky start, Jenny will do everything in her power to keep her promise, even with the child's cousins in hot pursuit. Then she is mysteriously drawn to the handsome cowboy Ty Sanders, and though neither know it yet, their purpose is the same.

    So he seized the chance to work Abbie Westland's land...and from the moment he first saw Abbie, he was determined to use his arms to work the farm by day and to soothe her through the nights in his strong embrace.Abbie, with her fiery determination, was different from the fragile beauties he'd known at home. In her, Grayson found an honest passion he'd never experienced before. But could their growing love survive the surprising reminder of her past that came to haunt them?

    But his stolen kiss scatters her senses and, quicker than a whirling dust devil, they're wed!To her relief, Tucker's keen to fix the marital slipup--and then he tells her the deed she holds belongs to him, and him alone. Maybe she shouldn't rush to have their marriage annulled. No man, no matter how good-looking, is going to swindle Skylar out of the one thing she yearns for most--a home.

    For years afterward, each nursed a secret dream—that the other had grown into a special person—brave, good, kind.When Norah Hawkins and Caleb Sutton cross paths again, dreams die. She is a bitter, suicidal widow. He is a gunman with little conscience and few scruples. Alternately angry, repelled, and attracted, the two form an uneasy partnership to hold land she owns and he covets against a marauding neighbor. Their bargain never included love, or did it?

    She fought him with all the stiff propriety her stubborn will commanded ... but in her burned the aching embers of love too long denied--love that would force her to a choice no woman should ever have to make...

    But she fears this stranger who burns to avenge the wrongs of treacherous men. For Caleb is as wild and unpredictable as the uncivilized land he loves. Yet, though she challenges him at every turn, the spirited southern lady knows this proud, enigmatic loner is her destiny. And no matter what peril awaits, they must face it together -- for Willow has become a fever in Caleb′s blood ... awakening a need so fierce that he would defeat the devil himself to possess her.

    Two passionate travelers, united by need, threatened by pasts they could not outrun ...Lydia Bryant --- voluptuous and russet-haired, fleeing from a secret shame, vowing that never again would a man, any man, overpower her ...Ross Coleman --- dark, brooding and iron-willed, with the shadow of a lawless past in his piercing eyes, sworn to resist the temptation of his wanton longings ...Fate threw them together on the same wild road, where they fought the breathtaking desire blazing between them, while the shadows of their enemies grew longer. As the wagon train rolled west, the danger to them drew ever closer, until a showdown with their pursuers was inevitable. Before it was over, Lydia and Ross would face death ... the truth about each other ... and the astonishing strength of their love ...

    With all of the good men dying at the hands of a local rancher and his three sons, Raine hires a shootist to be the town’s protector. But her handsome new employee is more than a hired hand; he’s a man who keeps his guns close and his secrets closer. BUT NOTHING COULD PROTECT HER HEART After a chance encounter on a train, Kellen Coltrane travels to the Pennyroyal to carry out a dying man’s last wish. But once he meets the hotel’s fiery-haired proprietor, Coltrane finds himself assuming the role of the shootist’s accomplice and agrees to protect Bitter Springs. And as he learns more about Raine’s own tragedy, Coltrane can’t deny his growing desire for the courageous widow, or the urge to protect her from the threat that draws near…

    That is until a single slap to a man’s face starts a barroom brawl that lands her in the last place she expected to be.Town Marshal Morgan Avery wants nothing more than to wash away the trail-dust and sleep for a week, preferably with a soft, willing woman by his side. Instead, he gets Abigail Thornton – all one hundred pounds of her thrust at him seconds before a fist connects with his face. Breaking up the fight takes more effort than he wants to admit and when the last man falls he finds Abigail still standing and not looking the least bit contrite.Throwing her into the town jail for the night would salve his wounded pride and then he will let her go. Or that was the plan. When morning comes he finds himself oddly reluctant to do so. Miss Thornton is hiding something and he aims to find out what, even if he has to bed her to do so. But will one night in her bed be enough?

    An authoress and milliner, she carries the weight of a scandalous secret-a horrible shame that has brought her to the West on a desperate search for the only family she can trust: her brother.Fall in love with the first book in the Blood Rose trilogy-a romance of the Old West by a phenomenal new talent.

    Asa dreams of a place of his own, a wife, and the respect that comes with both. Marrying Elizabeth may have started as a means to an end, but nothing in Asa's wildest dreams prepares him for the excitement of unleashing the carnal woman beneath his wife's prim and proper exterior.