Cactus Flower — Shirl Henke

The Republic of Texas! It was big, rich, and free...and where eighteen-year-old tomboy Charlee McAllister hoped to join her brother on a ranch in San Antonio. Yet when she got there, he was dead, killed in a tragic "accident."

Penniless, alone, and vowing to find her brother's murderer, Charlee went to work for Jim Slade, the ranch's handsome owner. Though his surly ways made Charlee's blood boil, his smile dazzled her, and on a steamy Texas night he forever claimed her innocence and stole her heart. But could Slade love her? Charlee knew his aristocratic fiancee; surely Jim would choose a lady over one of his hired hands! How could she know that one day she and Slade would fight together the deadly betrayal that engulfed them...and that in his bronzed arms she would know the glory of sublime surrender?