Prairie Song — Cheryl Anne Porter

Running for her life, Kate Chandler flees to Oklahoma with a price on her head, hoping to stake a claim in the Great Land Run of 1889. But with no money, no protection, no foot-and an unborn baby to think about-she is desperate enough to accept a devil's bargain from notorious bounty hunter Cole Youngblood. Ruggedly handsome, he'll stake her claim of she'll be a mother to his sister's three orphaned children-unaware of Kate's dangerous secret: she is the quarry he's been hired to find.
Cole knows Kate is running from something terrible; the fear in her eyes is clar as day. But that doesn't change his plan to marry her, make the Land Run, then leave Kate and the children behind-safe away from the hard life he's chosen...