Texas Blue (paperback)

She wasn’t a fit mother…
So said the county judge who hired Buck Cameron to retrieve his little daughter. But when Buck finally locates the pretty mother and child, he finds the claim very hard to believe. Now, he faces a dilemma. Should he obey the order? Or should he defy the judge and rescue Marilee and her child from isolation?

She’d been banished…
Rejected and abandoned by her father, Marilee Weston used the pain of betrayal to survive. Now, she needs a way out of the forest, where she and her daughter had lived for five years. But the towering pines and fear of the unknown imprisoned her. How could she begin a new life for herself and five-year-old daughter? Will the alluring stranger free her, or prove to be even more dangerous?

(276 pages) Spicy

EXCERPT:

Once again, her gaze drifted off into space.

Barely audible, she mused, “If a person’s father won’t take up for her and protect her, no matter what, then there’s something wrong with her.’’

Buck didn’t really believe a man’s heart could actually twist in his chest, but his did. Strangled with emotion—love mixed with rage. “No, honey, that’s not it. You didn’t figure it out after all, so I’m going to have to explain it to you. Are you listening?”

“Go ahead,” she whispered wearily.

“You’re scared to death. You’re so afraid to trust and love, because, what will that get you? Soon enough, a man would find out all those faults and weaknesses, which you have conjured up, and then he would reject you and abandon you. Right? So, what to do? You just start right out making a list to hold up to a man. You tell that man your faults first before he finds out on his own. What does that accomplish? Why, you get to go first, rejecting and abandoning and hurting.”

“That’s enough, Buck. I have to get back to Josie. She’ll be worried sick. Besides, you don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m rejecting you, Buck, because I simply don’t love you. Now, get that through your thick skull!”

Buck actually grinned. “That’s the spirit. That’s my girl. And I would re-think that part about not loving me!”