Character Spotlight: Rachel Leonard

Rachel Leonard has spent her entire life at the Lazy L Ranch, and there is nowhere else she wants to be. She may have been sent away to boarding school and finishing school, but the mountains of Wyoming have always called her home. She has returned to the ranch again and again, carrying a piece of that land with her even when she was far away.

For the past six years, Rachel has done what she can to keep the Lazy L solvent while caring for her injured father and raising her young son, Joshua. She can rope cattle, ride drag, brand calves, mend fences, milk cows, and do whatever else the ranch requires. Her hands are calloused, her nails are often broken, and she has no intention of surrendering the place she has worked so hard to preserve.

So when a stranger rides up claiming her father gambled away nearly half the ranch, Rachel does what any sensible Wyoming ranch woman would do: She points a shotgun at him.

Harrison Taylor is the last man she wants on the Lazy L. He's also the man she may need.

Rachel is small, slender, and often mistaken for someone far more fragile than she really is. Beneath the denim and chambray is a woman who knows how to be a lady when circumstances allow—and how to fight like hell when they don't. She is compassionate without being weak, stubborn without being cruel, and fiercely protective of the people and place she loves.

Rachel has spent years believing she has to stand alone.

She is about to discover that sometimes the strongest thing a woman can do is let someone stand beside her.