LITMIR.BIZ

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      Tina Leonard is a bestselling author of more than forty projects, including a popular thirteen-book miniseries for Harlequin American Romance. Her books have made the Waldenbooks, Ingram’s and Nielsen BookScan bestseller lists. Tina feels she has been blessed with a fertile imagination and quick typing skills, excellent editors and a family who loves her career. Born on a military base, she lived in many states before eventually marrying the boy who did her crayon printing for her in the first grade. Tina believes happy endings are a wonderful part of a good life. You can visit her at www.tinaleonard.com.

      Special thanks to Anne Stuart—

       brainstorming this idea with you was so much fun! Many thanks to the members of the Tina Leonard’s Nightstand newsletter for being so enthusiastic about this story, and also to Georgia Haynes for editing. Much, much gratitude goes to the very loyal readers who graciously and faithfully support my career. And as always, Lisa, Dean and Tim— you are the love behind my writing.

      Contents

      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

      Epilogue

      Chapter One

      Somewhere in the Texas Panhandle, Christmas

       season of 1892

      For Dillinger Kent, retired gunslinger, life was quiet on his thousand-acre spread on the outskirts of the Texas Panhandle town of Christmas River. Winter with its promise of bitter cold and occasional snow, unlike the rest of the state, made his solitary lifestyle even more remote. Springtime brought fullness to his ranch, with trees and grasses dressing the stark landscape in glorious greens; summer and fall brought their own lustrous hues to warm the countryside.

      But the Christmas season was a harbinger of the icy cocoon soon to envelop him for the next three months. It was the middle of December, and deep winter crept closer.

      He’d chosen a life of loneliness when he’d lost his wife, Polly Hartskill Kent. They’d made plans for a family out here, a big home to raise them in. Christmas on the ranch, Polly said, would be so much fun with lots of little feet running around. Polly had a beautiful soul and Dillinger had loved her as he would never love anyone again. But his darling wife had taken ill with pneumonia during the last Christmas season, and having a beautiful soul hadn’t saved her.

      He picked up a self-portrait Polly had drawn for him, which he’d put in a wooden frame. She was luminous, even in charcoal. Her kindness and grace of spirit was captured in the lines of her likeness. He set the picture down and picked up a pair of small, dangling earrings with tiny golden bells. They were delicate, like Polly. He’d given them to her two Christmases ago, a wedding gift he’d picked up on his last trip to California. She’d been thrilled with them, giggling when they lightly tinkled at her ears. The earrings felt like a tiny memory between his rough fingers. He would never give them to another woman, would never part with them.

      Dillinger forced his mind away from Polly. He wondered if he might go crazy one day in this isolated countryside. But he knew it was just the date on the calendar he’d bought at Gin’s Feed Store that was making him maudlin. He’d make it to springtime—he swore that he would. He curled his fingers around the earrings, then set them back on the desk, barely able to turn them loose.

      The wind whipped around outside the nine-room home he’d built with his own hands. No chill would seep in—he knew every inch of his house and it was tight against the elements. Dillinger closed his eyes, wondered if he should go check the livestock, which would be huddled in close groups for warmth. They were more than likely fine.

      Still, he had the urge to look outside.

      Then he heard the wailing.

      It came thin at first, carried by the wind. It wasn’t an animal’s cry—it sounded human. But at this time of night, nearly ten o’clock, there would be no people around. His ranch was far from town, hardly a convenient place for someone to stop by.

      Yet he heard it again. He buttoned his long oilskin coat, which reached below his knees. Grabbing gloves and setting his cowboy hat tight on his head, he prepared for the gusts of wind that would tear at him. He stepped out and nearly onto a basket that had been laid on his porch. By God, it was a baby, a pink-wrapped thing in a wicker basket.

      Dillinger looked in all directions, but there were no footprints in the snow leading away from the house. Yet the baby couldn’t have been there long. “Hey!” he called into the darkness. “You can’t leave this here! Come back!”

      The poor woman who had left her child here didn’t understand. He lived alone. He went to town only four times a year. He was basically a pariah.

      The gossip mill of Christmas River had turned on him after Polly’s death, and to his shock, it was said that Polly had died of pneumonia after trying to flee from him one cold December night. Her parents had claimed that he was jealous, had become aware that another man wanted to court Polly, and that Dillinger had chased her down, intending to murder her in cold blood.

      Now he was a man with no town.

      “Come back here!” he yelled into the breath-stealing chill of the snowstorm. But there

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