Joan Johnston – författare

New York Times bestselling author Joan Johnston returns to Texas with a captivating story of justice, secrets, and a love that can heal all wounds

Dedicated Texas Ranger Jack Kittrick is hard on the trail of a killer who is preying on the helpless in a large San Antonio hospital . . . a hunt that leads him to Maggie Wainwright, the beautiful, enigmatic legal eagle who had access to the victims—and a motive for the crimes. The more Jack learns about Maggie, the more this secretive lady—who makes his spurs tangle and his heart run wild—enthralls and perplexes him.

When her own son becomes the killer's target, Maggie can no longer keep silent about her painful, shadowy past. With everything she truly cares about at stake, Maggie must cast her fate to the Texas winds . . . and trust her future, and her love, to the determined lawman who has more questions for her than she has answers.

In this breathtaking novel, New York Times bestselling author Joan Johnston weaves a beguiling tale of two feuding families—the Blackthornes and the Creeds—and of two extraordinary people: loner Owen Blackthorne and beautiful, headstrong Bayleigh Creed, irresistibly drawn to each other despite the desperate odds against their love.   Owen Blackthorne is a lone wolf, a man who doesn’t need anyone. Then Bayleigh Creed appears on his doorstep, demanding his help in locating her missing brother. Together they head into the desolate West Texas wilderness, a Blackthorne and a Creed, mortal enemies obliged to join forces to survive. Neither counts on the unwanted attraction that draws them together, or the bitter truths that will force them apart—until the ruthless wilderness compels them to make life-and-death choices between family and duty and love.

Can secrets and second choices ever lead to love?After three months in a mail-order marriage, Hannah Wentworth McMurtry is a widow - pregnant, alone, and near death in the Wyoming wilderness. Though she is saved by a man with a face cut from stone, she still grieves the husband who died on their journey west. Hannah needs a husband, but does she dare marry another stranger?Flint Creed has also lost someone he loved - when the woman he hoped to marry chose his younger brother instead. Now he must find a ranch wife of his own. But every female in the remote Wyoming Territory is too old, too young, or already married . . . until he discovers Hannah on the prairie. Flint doesn''t pretend to love her, but he doesn''t tell her he loves another woman, either. Hannah doesn''t pretend to love him, but she doesn''t tell him about the child she carries. Though danger surrounds them on the Wyoming frontier, the greatest threats of all are the secrets within - revelations that could destroy the new life Hannah and Flint have begun to cherish.

When Karl Norwood''s mail-order bride meets an untimely demise on the way to the Montana Territory, Hetty Wentworth steps in to take her place. Hetty has no idea how she''s going to pretend to be all the things she isn''t - including the mother of two kids. She only knows her deception is necessary if she''s going to save two orphans from the awful fate she suffered as a child.Karl smells a rat when a much younger woman than he was expecting arrives with two children who look nothing like her. But his mail-order bride is so beautiful, he doesn''t object - until he realizes that his charming new wife has been lying . . . about everything. Can a woman forced to keep secrets and a man hindered by distrust ever hope to find happily ever after in each other''s arms?

Miranda Wentworth never imagined becoming a mail-order bride. Now marriage to a stranger is her only hope of finding a home where she and her two younger brothers can escape the brutality of the Chicago orphanage where they live. With any luck, she can even start a family of her own, once the three of them are settled at Jacob Creed''s Texas ranch. But Miranda has one gigantic concern: Her husband-to-be knows nothing about the brothers she''s bringing along. What if he calls off the deal when he discovers the trick she''s played on him?Jake Creed is hanging on to his Texas ranch by his fingernails. His nemesis, Alexander Blackthorne, is determined to ruin him. Jake will never give up, but he''s in desperate trouble. His wife died six months ago in childbirth, along with their stillborn son, and his two-year-old daughter needs a mother. The advertisement Jake wrote never mentioned his daughter - or the fact that he has no intention of consummating his marriage. He''s determined never to subject another wife to the burden of pregnancy. But Jake doesn''t count on finding his bride so desirable. He doesn''t count on aching with need when she joins him in bed. And he never suspected his bride would have plans of her own to seduce him.