No man, with either Bowie knife or Colt, can best Lee Velasquez. As a youth of twenty-two, he returned to his ranch one day to find the body of his young bride, raped and killed by renegades calling themselves “rangers.” After exacting bloody vengeance, Lee flees Texas for the vast wastes of the Apachería and life as a scalper. Years later, he is back in Texas filled with anger, guilt, and a compelling need to rebuild his heritage in the home of his youth.
No man, whether eighteen or eighty, can resist the ebony-haired, gold-eyed beauty of the “Night Flower,” Melanie Fleming. Educated in Boston, she returns to her family in Texas transformed into a radical crusader for abolition, women’s suffrage and temperance. Like Velasquez, she seeks to escape a troubled past filled with guilt and shame.
But Melanie and Lee share a history stretching back to childhood. Each cherishes a passionate dislike for the other, but “passionate dislike” can mask another kind of passion, one that forces them into a shotgun wedding. Two proud and lonely people will find an amazing love that scorches hotter than the Texas sun.
