Angel Creek (Lady of the West Series #2) » (Unabridged, 8 CDs, 9 hours)

Linda Howard is the award-winning author of many New York Times bestsellers, including Drop Dead Gorgeous, Cover of Night, Killing Time, To Die For, Kiss Me While I Sleep, Cry No More, Dying to Please, Open Season, Mr. Perfect, All the Queen’s Men, Now You See Her, Kill and Tell, and Son of the Morning. She lives in Alabama with her husband and two golden retrievers.

For five years after her father died, lithe, beautiful Dee Swann held on to Angel Creek valley and her independence. The homestead was hers, and she vowed no one else would ever own it...or her. Then Lucas Cochran came back to Colorado. In the drought-cursed high country, he needed Angel Creek and its cool water to turn his Double C ranch into the cattle dynasty he craved. His ruthless ambition guaranteed he would fight to take it away from the black-haired, green-eyed spitfire who claimed it.

But the passion that blazed when Dee Swann and Lucas Cochran met shocked them both. Unbidden, unexpected, their kisses swept them toward a dangerous destiny where dreams might be scattered...men could be killed...or love would be born as wild and unfettered as this glorious frontier.

Publishers Weekly

Howard's ( A Lady of the West ) ability to develop engaging romantic characters is the greatest asset in this otherwise routine tale of a 19th-century female homesteader and the rancher who wins her heart. Dee Swann lives alone, and that's the way she wants it. She tends her small Colorado settlement, dissuading the occasional unwelcome suitor with a round of buckshot. Unfortunately, the local gents are also interested in Angel Creek, Dee's reliable water supply. When after a 10-year absence Lucas Cochran returns to inherit his father's ranch, he succumbs to the lure of the spunky woman and her creek--although he expects he'll marry socially well-placed Olivia Millican, Dee's only close friend. Dee's claims of independence seem less convincing after a fall renders her temporarily immobile, dependent on neighbor Lucas's help for even the simplest chores. Lucas presses his advantage, luring Dee into the intimacy she had always shunned. But as the relationship blossoms, the land withers in a dry spell that makes Angel Creek look ever more desirable to ranchers with thirsty cattle--men with no qualms about running roughshod over Dee or her little patch of earth. (Nov.)