Hattie Longmore knew that a divorced woman with nothing more to her name than some gold dust was worth about a barrel of shucks to a man, so she traveled to her brother's Idaho ranch to make a life watching over him and his motherless daughter. But when she arrived, Hattie was greeted by his broad-shouldered best friend, Jim Rider with the news of her brother's murder.

Faint and fearful, Hattie sought comfort in this cowboy's strong, sheltering arms and found herself longing to forget her troubles for a night in his exquisite, loving embrace. Long, lean Jim Rider wouldn't rest until he caught the men who'd killed his best friend. But staying in one place too long wasn't in his blood, and he was madder than a rattlesnake that he was stuck on this ranch with Hattie a lady he'd labeled off-limits.

Hattie was the marrying kind, and this cowboy's mind kept straying to the thought of that creamy, curvaceous body under his. For with that mass of curls swirling around her soft shoulders and those glittering blue eyes beckoning him closer, Jim knew that just the velvet touch of those ruby lips would take him to the heights of Mountain Ecstasy.