BOOK
SUMMARY (Not the official blurb) :
A gritty and emotional historical western romance by RITA-award winning
and Bestselling author Molly O'Keefe.
Melody Hurst’s days as a Southern belle are over. Now she’s widowed and
alone in the foothills of the Rockies, struggling to make a life in a dangerous
world. She’s determined to secure a future by marrying – but love is out of the
question.
Cole Baywood has turned bounty hunter after serving in the horrors of
the Civil War, but the ghosts of the men and women he’s killed still haunt him.
He’s drawn to the beautiful widow trying to seduce him, only the darkness in
his soul forces him to reject her. Is it possible that Melody’s touch can heal
the demons of his past? And how can he convince a woman who has lost so much to
risk her heart?
Buy Links
Excerpt
“I had to marry Jimmy,” Melody said, because there was no way to ease
into the conversation. She stared down at her hands in the gloves that he’d
insisted she wear. “I thought I did, anyway.”
Cole stopped and she could tell by his tension, his stillness, that he was listening with his whole body. Such
attention was disarming, but flattering too. She’d never been so important to a man. Not Christopher.
Certainly not Jimmy. Not even her father.
Annie, her sister, might have had that joy, but to her father, Melody was
simply frivolous.
This marriage would not be a hardship with a man who paid such attention
to her.
“I . . . I don’t judge you. We’ve all had
to do things we probably wished we hadn’t.”
“He was my fiancé's brother. Christopher died .
. . so many good men died, and Jimmy came back.” She nearly laughed,
though none of it was funny. Jimmy’s survival seemed proof that God had not
been watching those battlefields. “Father was dead, my brother too. Mama. And our slaves—” She forced herself to look right at
him, this man who went to war, who risked his life for something she hadn’t
thought twice about until forced to. Add that to the pile of things he could
judge her for. “Our slaves were gone and Annie and me... we did the best we
could, but it was just the two of us and so much work. Jimmy offered marriage
and I agreed, but he didn’t do the work, either, and there was no money and no
one would work for him.”
“You didn't know his nature before the war?”
“He was . . . changed. He drank too much.
His temper was tenuous.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I have to look after my sister. And I thought all the decisions I was
making would do that.”
He walked toward her and she realized how tall he was. How serious. In
her life before she wouldn’t have picked him even to dance; she liked men who
smiled. And knew how to flirt and play her games. This man didn’t know how to
flirt. You could tell by looking at him, the
stone and steel of him was not made for such a thing. He might have been easier
before the war, but he was never fun.
She’d liked fun.
Now, she liked the way he cared for those seeds. The way he looked at her
as he crossed the field. His face in the firelight—she liked that, too. The way
he played the harmonica and laughed when she said shocking things.
“Your sister seems set on Denver.”
“I think my sister has a false idea of what our lives would be like
there.”
“Do . . . do you have no other family? No
one else to go to?”
She shook her head.
“My brother,” he said, “thought to sell a barrel of oil from the seeps
and give the money to you. He said that would be enough to get you passage on a
wagon train heading back to St. Joseph. From there you can get the train and
head east.”
“There’s nothing back east for us.”
“Then you could go west.”
“And try our luck with the Indians?”
He glanced away. “Tell me what you would have us do, Melody?”
You know, she thought. Don't make me do this. Please. You know.
But in the end he was silent and she had no choice.
“Marry me.”
Author
Information
Molly O'Keefe is a RITA-Award winning
author with 24 novels in publication. Her The Boys of Bishop series continues
this summer with Never Been Kissed and Between The Sheets. Her first Historical
Western, Seduced is available now. She lives in Toronto, Canada with her family
and the largest heap of dirty laundry in North America.
You can find her at:
AUTHOR LINKS:
Site - http://www.molly-okeefe.com/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/MollyOKwrites
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/MollyOKeefeBooks
No comments:
Post a Comment