Southern Rapture — Jennifer Blake

They said he was a murderer, but his kiss was warm and sure, tantalizing in its sweetness. They called him an outlaw and a rebel, but he aroused in her a passion she had never dreamed possible...

Lettie Mason, a proper yet headstrong Boston schoolteacher, journeyed to a small Louisiana town to find and expose the wretched rogue who'd killed her brother. She took a room in a once-grand estate that had fallen on hard times, and became part of a warm, friendly household that included Aunt Em, her few servants, and her nephew Ransom. As a Northerner visiting the South right after the Civil War, she tried to hide her shock at the conditions she encountered.

Lettie was searching for a man known as the Thorn -- a man with a reputation for both murder and mercy. She was sure he had killed her brother, but she learned that he also helped save the homes and lives of many townspeople. How could she reconcile these two different images of the same man -- and how could she accept the overwhelming desire, the thrilling passion, and the reckless abandon he aroused deep within her?

Hero: Ransom Tyler