Ethan's Heart — Vickie King

Sheriff Ethan Blackwood is obsessed with bringing his wife's killers to justice. Barely six months ago, a simple errand at the Cooper's Creek Bank put her in the middle of a robbery-turned-bloodbath. Ridden with guilt, Ethan vows to find the outlaws, wherever they are. But he needs a caretaker for his two small daughters. Having exhausted all other options, and because his daughters need a woman's influence in their lives, he accepts a mutual arrangement initiated by his brother-marriage in name only, to a homeless widow with an ailing infant. When his new wife, Annie, begins to tug on his heartstrings and to reignite the flames of desire he thought forever extinguished, his focus becomes clouded. How can he expect to keep his dead wife's memory alive when all he thinks about is Annie?After killing her stepfather, an abusive, heartless man who wagered her in a poker game, Annie Benton Holt is on the run. Even though she killed him in a struggle for her own life, when her stepbrothers find out she's killed their father they'll be out for blood. If the law doesn't put a noose around her neck first. Annie and her baby flee St. Louis on her stepfather's horse. She hides out with a family going west, but after a few days, the baby's health forces Annie to leave for the nearest town, Cooper's Creek. There, she is befriended by the town's doctor. Broke, homeless, and with baby's health unstable, the doctor proposes a marriage arrangement between her and his widowed brother. Annie believes this mutual arrangement is the perfect solution. But her perfect solution has a major flaw. The doctor's brother-and Annie's new husband-is the town's sheriff. Even though she promised Ethan forever, Annie knows she can't stay married to him since he's a lawman. But how can she leave and ever be happy again when this man and his children have wormed their way into her heart, and he alone has stirred the first feelings of passion in her soul?