Evie needed a skilled gunslinger to escort her safely to Texas. Her dime novel said Pecos Martin was the best. Unfortunately the golden-haired gambler she mistakenly approached at the Green Door Saloon was a hell-raising womanizer named Tyler Monteigne. Evie had grown up in a genteel St. Louis home as a "boarder." In reality, she was an abandoned love child with no one to love her-until a letter from Texas told her where to find her true identity.

Tyler could shoot straight enough, but he was also an expert con, and he knew this pretty gal was wrestling with inner demons—just like him. Sure he'd take her across the river to Texas. Yet he didn't foresee the dark passions rising to sweep them away, making Evie all he wanted—and making him exactly what she most feared.