Valley of Romance — Jean Woodward

When Susan Nash answered the ad seeking a companion to a five-year-old boy, she did so more out of rebellion against Eric Bennett than for any other reason. Eric, a stolid young businessman, was content with their bowling dates and Friday night dinners at his mother's, and lacked the sense of adventure that lay just beneath Susan's calm exterior.

But even Susan could not have guessed the extent of the adventure awaiting her when she met Lawrence Scofield, a photographer for World Magazine, who had placed the ad in the paper. He want Susan to accompany him and Jay Lucerno, his five-year-old ward, to the Scofield ranch in Arizona, to be Jay's friend and companion and to help ease the boy over the recent death of his mother. Susan did not hesitate in accepting the offer, for the idea of leaving San Francisco and her job in a typists' pool and flying to an Arizona ranch--with Lawrence Scofield, of course--for in with her quest for exploring unknown places and experiencing the romance of life.

And indeed, the cotton and cattle ranch belonging to Lawrence Scofield's father was a world unto itself, and it wasn't long before both Susan and Jay began to feel at home among the horses, desert shrubs, and elegant surroundings of the area known as the Valley of the Sun. But threaded among the laughter and sunshine was a faint air of mystery, of something not quite right, and as it grew in intensity, so did Susan's fears that her chance for happiness might never materalize.