Eleanor Lacey’s husband is as dead as their sexless marriage. While she waits for the law to decide if she’s widowed or divorced, she leaves scandal in Connecticut behind and flees to Texas to begin anew. But she needs money—fast. What better way to earn her grubstake than by cooking meals for the richest rancher in the state?

Cyrus Burke works hard for every penny he makes and prides himself on knowing where to cut costs. He doesn’t want a wife cluttering up his life. His housekeepers are good enough—round-the-clock employees tending his sexual appetite too. When Mrs. Lacey applies for the position, she looks like a promising candidate. Delicious in fact, as smooth and creamy as a tasty tart.

When Eleanor and Cyrus come together, it’s a recipe for hot love. Take one wickedly willful widow and one arrogantly masterful man, add a dash of decadent desire, a pinch of sizzling naughty, and turn up the fire.

Lucy and Ambrose Quince share fiery passion in and out of bed; they love hard but fight often, both having opinions and tempers. But Lucy mysteriously disappears in 1874, leaving the Double-Q ranch and all she loves behind. Three years later, scarred in mind and body, Lucy is drawn back to Eclipse and the life she's forgotten-including a snarling, lustful husband.

Although she claims she can't remember him, Ambrose hasn't forgotten a damned thing. Lucy left him and he owes her nothing. Trouble is-his heart remembers too, and Lucy's the only woman who'll ever own it.

Reader Advisory: This book contains rape and graphic violence. This title was previously published elsewhere as Intimate Strangers, but has been revised extensively for Ellora's Cave.

Fresh from the post-Civil War salons and drawing rooms of Boston, Lucy McKenna considers herself a sophisticated young woman. But when she meets Texas rancher Ambrose Quince, she turns into a flustered girl. He’s too old, war roughened and unrefined—and she has no idea how to deal with the sensual hunger he inspires.

Ambrose falls fast and hard for the innocent debutante visiting Eclipse, Texas. Persuading Lucy to accept his pursuit becomes a duel of wits and passion as he awakens her desire.

Lucy leaves Boston and childhood behind when she becomes Mrs. Ambrose Quince. Her lonely days on the Double-Q ranch are filled with work and frustration. But the nights are spent in her husband’s arms, learning carnal awareness…one molten caress at a time. 

When bounty hunter Sam McCallister sees Eden Pace playing poker for the first time, he loses all interest in the cards; instead, the thought of playing stud with the lady gambler stirs his cock to life. Eden’s the prettiest woman and the best card sharp Sam’s ever met. Good thing he has a few cards up his sleeve.

Eden’s doing her own outlaw hunting. She’s on the trail of her husband’s killer and Sam’s in her way. To get free of this hardheaded, softhearted, gorgeous man, Eden tries strip poker and naked truth-or-dare, but when Sam ups the stakes, carnal submission and desire are unleashed.

When Sam discovers Eden’s wanted for murder, he figures his bed is the safest place for her. But taking Eden prisoner isn’t as easy as Sam expects. He’s in a high-stakes poker game with lust on the table and his heart on the line, because one taste of Eden just isn’t enough. 

Half-Kiowa rancher Grady Hawks owns 9,000 acres of water-enriched Texas grassland. But when the Eastern Land Company moves to steal Hawks Nest Ranch, claiming Grady is too Indian to rightfully control it, Grady decides to apply what he’s learned in mixing different strains of cattle.

He needs to find a red-haired wife and breed back to the fair skin and Scottish features of his father. With a white child and wife, he plans to appease his neighbors and outmaneuver the greedy Eastern consortium of businessmen who are trying to steal Texas land.

But when Grady marries auburn-haired widow, Julie Fulton Rossiter, breeding cattle is the last thing on his mind. Julie doesn’t want a husband, but with an accusation of murder threatening her, Grady Hawks’ offer of marriage is something Julie needs. When unexpected passion burns hot between them, want and need take on a whole new meaning.

Rough and tough bounty hunter Charlie Wolf McCallister knows he needs to get laid when even a skinny, old-maid teacher with a sharp tongue starts looking good to him. But, cad that he is, he operates on the philosophy that a bird in hand is better than no bird at all. And so he offers to trade service for--servicing.

When Naomi Parker’s students are snatched from their school by marauding Comancheros, she can’t believe that she hid like a coward and let it happen. The only way to ease her conscience, and get the girls home safely, is to hire the half-Kiowa bounty hunter. Charlie Wolf’s price seems a bit steep to prim and proper Naomi, who must choose between her virtue and her students’ lives.

When one almost dried-up spinster tenders her body to one cynical sometimes-savage, the unexpected bounty is love.