"Leaving the past behind in Philadelphia, mail-order bride Sarah Dobbs arrives in San Antonio ready to greet her groom - a man she has never met but whose letters, her paper roses, have won her heart from afar. But there is a problem - Austin Canfield is dead, and Sarah cannot go back East. As Sarah tries to reconcile herself to a future that is drastically changed, Austin's brother, Clay, wants nothing more than to shake the Texas dust from his boots,...

Cal Petterson is left alone on his Texas ranch when his wife Jane returns to her childhood home in California with their children.

China's herb shop and catering business may be thriving, but she's still reeling from her father's death, and not even remotely interested in her half-brother Miles's investigation into that event. China's husband, on the other hand, has no such qualms. And when fate forces her to get involved as well, China realizes it's time to bring the past to light-or else it will haunt her the rest of her life. But China and McQuaid discover that Miles may have...

Cal Petterson is left alone on his Texas ranch when his wife Jane returns to her childhood home in California with their children.

To Elmer Kelton, the brush country of southwest Texas is home. Nobody knows Texas's history, people, beauty, and dangers as well as this greatest of Western writers. Barbed Wire, the first novel in this omnibus, is the story of one-time cowboy Doug Monahan, who runs a fencing crew outside the town of Twin Wells. Monahan, a likeable, hard-working Irishman, and his workers dig post-holes and string red painted barbwire for ranchers as protection against...

Allie Siders retreats to the peaceful Bluebird Ranch in the Texas hill country with her five-year-old daughter Betsy, both to hide from a dangerous stalker and in the hopes that Betsy will heal enough to speak again. There she meets ranch foreman Rick Bailey and learns to love again.

Longing for adventure, Priscilla Morton leaves Boston and heads for Texas, never dreaming that the adventure she seeks will leave her badly injured and her parents dead. Priscilla is determined to rebuild her life and make a home for herself in the beautiful Hill Country. But the bandits who took her parents' lives also destroyed her hope for the future. Ranch foreman Zachary Webster knows what the future holds for him, and it's not a woman like Priscilla....

When a prominent animal researcher is found hanged in the midst of angry protests against his experiments, suspicion falls on biology professor Dottie Riddle. Known as the Cat Lady of Pecan Springs, Dottie's sympathy for strays-and the victim's distaste for them-gives the police reason to think she may be capable of murder. But China Bayles doesn't think so. She hires a lawyer for Dottie and starts looking around for clues. But she soon discovers...