Crossings — Stef Ann Holm

He called himself Carrigan, a loner everyone in Genoa whispered about and feared. Living in the Sierras with only his dog and Colt revolver for company, he believed he didn't need a woman until Helena Gray ventured up his mountain and asked to become his wife. The marriage was to be a business proposition pure and simple, with no intimacy and no emotions. But there was nothing simple about what he unexpectedly wanted from her -- on terms that came unbidden from his heart.

Determined to keep her Pony Express station after her father's murder, Helena soon learned that a lot of people wanted her to fail. Cut off by her suppliers, she brazenly went after what she needed: Carrigan, a man whose eyes were flat and unemotional, who might trade his name for whiskey and cigarettes, and who'd surely clear out when the job was done. Only too late did she realize that taking his name wouldn't be as impersonal as she had thought...for once in his arms, she longed to be his wife in every way.

Hero: Jake Carrigan
Heroine: Helena Gray