Living as a spinster and caring for her sister's illegitimate child, Julia Larson has never known passion. So she's surprised by the feelings that are stirred up when a secretive new ranchhand shows up to work on the Larson ranch. He's not a man she can trust, but as a violent fight for her land's water rights heats up, he may be the man she needs. Wolf McCloud charms the ladies, but never sticks around long. Having traced the mother who abandoned him to Northern California, he never expects to be drawn to Julia Larson as more than a means to an end.

After being abandoned by her lover and shunned by her family, Anna Jensen decides to make a new start in the rugged wilderness of the California mountains. But before she can reach her destination and begin her new life as a humble schoolteacher, she's captured by a brooding warrior known only as "Bear". Her kidnapping wasn't entirely random, though. Bear is actually Nicholas Gaspard, the half-Indian son of the rich rancher who originally hired Anna.

Desperate to escape a dark past, Dinah Odell will do anything, even risk her freedom by posing as a nurse and accepting a job to care for Tristan Fletcher's mentally fragile sister. She thinks she's prepared for anything, except the sensitive, generous, and mysterious man behind the facade that Tristan Fletcher presents to the world. With a dark past of his own, Tristan survived the barbs of childhood by closing his heart off from the rest of the world. He sees something similar in Dinah, a desire to flee, and it sparks his desire to protect her. To marry her, even.

After losing his wife in a vigilante attack, Jackson Wolfe ran from his grief and his guilt, leaving behind his baby daughter to be raised by strangers. Twelve years later, he knows it's time to quit running. He's learned everything there is to know about vengeance in his travels around the world, but now it's time to settle down and take up a new mantle: father to Dawn Twilight. He knows that if he finds her, he'll be the best father a little girl ever had. But when he arrives in Thief River to be the new sheriff and claim his daughter, her adoptive mother has other plans.

There was trouble in Haven, Arizona, and Ranger Sam O'Ballivan was determined to sort it all out. He arrived posing as the new schoolteacher, and his first order of business was to bring the rough ranchers' children under control. To that end, he called on Maddie Chancelor, the local postmistress, whose younger brother was in firm need of discipline. Sam wasn't sure what to expect - but it was definitely not this graceful woman whose prim, proper stance was so at odds with the fire in her eyes.

Although Celeste Montgomery was forced into a marriage a year ago, her husband is more often gone than home, and she is living a quiet life. Until Investigator Owen Gregory shows up at her home to tell her some outrageous news: Her husband has been murdered...and he was also a bigamist, making her the third of three wives.

Raised in the hills of Tennessee, Emma Simms dreams of the day she’ll escape her life of poverty to start over in the excitement of Knoxville. But when her mother dies and she’s left with no one but her stepfather, Luke Simms, her dream abruptly becomes a nightmare. Luke plans to send Emma to Knoxville all right - straight to a notorious brothel. River Joe, the mysterious Cherokee-raised frontiersman, knew from the first time he set eyes on the beautiful Emma that he had to have her as his own.

1887. Debutante Julia Crawford endures a lifetime of subtle ridicule as the plump, silly daughter of a premiere Boston family. Julia strikes out on her own to gain independence, traveling to the Midwest to marry an aging shopkeeper and care for his mother. Julia finds her new home rough and uncivilized after the sophistication of a big city, while closely held secrets threaten to ruin Julia's one chance at love.

When Luke McCutcheon finds Faith Brown about to give birth in her rickety wagon, his first instincts are to ride for help. Instead, he stays and delivers a beautiful baby girl. Unable to leave the pretty young widow and her little son and newborn unprotected in the Montana wilderness, he brings them along on his family's cattle drive, to the absolute delight of the other friendly cowboys.

For outsiders, Painted Canyon, Montana might simply be a picturesque western town, but for rancher and horse trainer Cord Hollister, it's meant salvation. That's why he recognizes in newcomer Shallie Fletcher another lost soul looking for a fresh start. But can he convince her that Painted Canyon is the perfect place to put down roots-and that love awaits if she'll just take a chance?