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      “Get your damn foot out of my door.”

      This time it was a subdued roar, delivered from a twisted face of anger. “Do I have to call the sheriff to toss you out on your fanny?” He looked her up and down. “Though unless my eyes deceive me, it might take two husky men to do the job.”

      Alicia felt the flush climb her cheeks. It was an insult, delivered honestly—but an insult, nevertheless. And as the town’s schoolteacher, she had until this moment been accorded the courtesy due to her position. She gritted her teeth. That her weight was, and always had been, a problem was neither here nor there. But this blatant intention to offend her had touched a sore spot, one she guarded closely.

      “Two husky men?” Her brow jerked upward. “More like three,” she answered crisply, “unless the blacksmith is one of them.”

      Acclaim for Carolyn Davidson’s recent titles

      The Marriage Agreement

      “Davidson uses her considerable skills

      to fashion a plausible, first-class

      marriage-of-convenience romance.”

      —Romantic Times BOOKclub

      Colorado Courtship

      “Davidson deftly mixes courtship

      and a marriage of conveniece with the intrigue

      of gold hunting, robbery and murder.”

      —Romantic Times BOOKclub

      Texas Gold

      “Davidson delivers a story

      fraught with sexual tension.”

      —Romantic Times BOOKclub

      A Marriage by Chance

      “This deftly written novel about

      loss and recovery is a skillful handling

      of the traditional Western, with the

      added elements of family conflict

      and a moving love story.”

      —Romantic Times BOOKclub

      The Tender Stranger

      “Davidson wonderfully captures gentleness

      in the midst of heart-wrenching challenges,

      portraying the extraordinary possibilities

      that exist within ordinary marital love.”

      —Publishers Weekly

      Redemption

      Carolyn Davidson

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Also by Carolyn Davidson

      Big Sky Rancher

      Texas Lawman

      One Starry Christmas

      “Stormwalker’s Woman”

      The Marriage Agreement

      ††Colorado Courtship

      Texas Gold

      Tempting a Texan

      The Texan

      A Marriage by Chance

      A Convenient Wife

      The Seduction of Shay Devereaux

      Maggie’s Beau

      One Christmas Wish

      “Wish Upon a Star”

      *Tanner Stakes His Claim

      *The Bachelor Tax

      The Midwife

      The Tender Stranger

      The Wedding Promise

      Runaway

      The Forever Man

      Loving Katherine

      Gerrity’s Bride

      This story is dedicated to all those

      wonderful readers who took time to write me after they’d read The Wedding Promise. And to those who asked why I hadn’t given Jake, a strong secondary character, a book of his own. I agreed with them, and found myself thinking often of Jake and wondering what had happened to him. This is it, ladies. Jake’s story, which in my humble opinion is the best story I’ve ever written.

      My dedication would not be complete

      without mentioning my manager, the wonderful Mr. Ed, who is my other half, my inspiration and my love.

      CONTENTS

       PROLOGUE

       CHAPTER ONE

       CHAPTER TWO

       CHAPTER THREE

       CHAPTER FOUR

       CHAPTER FIVE

       CHAPTER SIX

       CHAPTER SEVEN

       CHAPTER EIGHT

       CHAPTER NINE

       CHAPTER TEN

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

       CHAPTER TWELVE

       CHAPTER THIRTEEN

       CHAPTER FOURTEEN

       CHAPTER FIFTEEN

       CHAPTER SIXTEEN

       CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

       CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

      PROLOGUE

      Green Rapids, Kansas—Summer 1877

      THE GRAVE GAPED, an obscene rectangle wherein lay a simple coffin. Lorena McPherson, wife of Jacob, mother of Jason, lay beneath the scattering of flowers the mourning family and townsfolk had dropped into

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