Jonny wished she'd never set foot in this godforsaken town…

What was she thinking when she'd accepted the offer, to begin with? Jonny knew what had sent her fleeing to this territory. She was running from Blaine Masters. His cruelty and his unforgiving nature were only a few of the reasons she'd left her family behind.

Blaine continued to use his threats against her father to urge her to marry him. She couldn't do it; she knew what a bastard he was. If she married him, one day, she'd end up dead in the dust, like his first wife.

She'd come to Arizona to draw him away from her family in Black Hawk, Wyoming, and it seemed that Blaine might have already found her. The dead bodies she'd found left at her doorstep almost weekly, was something Blaine would do.

The only thing she could do was to confide in her deputy.

Sherman Oaks hadn't wanted to answer to a woman when the new sheriff first arrived…

However, that quickly changed once he learned she was serious about her job. She wanted to keep the people who lived in Benson safe, but in doing so, she might have made them all a target.

It took a little convincing, but Sherman finally agreed to go along with the sheriff's plan. Not because he cared a lick about some of the townspeople who Blaine was threatening, but because he was quickly falling for the brash, sexy woman who wore the badge.

Sherman vowed to protect the sheriff if it was the last thing he did in this town.