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Set in the years immediately following the Civil War, this is a love story of two people—one grappling with immeasurable loss, the other on the brink of it. Cantrell is a former Confederate Captain haunted by the guilt he feels for the death of his younger brother in the war. Annie is a young rancher in danger of losing everything her parents carved out of the wilderness. Together, each may be able to help the other.
The spine of the plot is rather shopworn. Annie is struggling to keep her Wyoming ranch afloat with no one to help but her ten-year-old brother. Greedy Colonel Randolph is snatching up all the land around her spread and doing everything he can to force her out. One day, she’s accosted by Randolph’s brigands. Cantrell saves her from being raped but is severely wounded in the process. The remainder of the story involves Annie nursing Cantrell back to health, Cantrell helping Annie defend her land, and the two of them falling in love.
While Farrelly adds some unique tributaries to the flow of her story, the author devotes the majority of the book to the relationship that builds between the two central characters. Their slow simmering attraction to one another, their growing sexual desire, and their eventual abiding love are the legs of the stool on which this western romance sits. Farrelly does a good job of making her villains vile and her lovers virtuous. She elongates couplings while keeping the violence brief but appropriately abhorrent. She has penned a tale likely to keep romance genre fans entertained while reading and satisfied by novel’s end.