|
Can an outlaw with an unsavory past and a banker’s
daughter with a dark secret trust each other enough to have a
future? That’s the question posed in Linda Lael Miller’s newest
addition to the Stone Creek Series, The Rustler.
After serving two years in prison, Wyatt Yarbro,
older brother of Marshal Rowdy Yarbro, has come to Stone Creek
determined to play it straight. He’s upfront about his history, if
not about the recent skirmish that set him on the path to honest
living. He even told the lovely banker’s daughter, Sarah Tamlin, who
has captured his fancy and heightened his yearning for an honest
life where he no longer has to run. He’s learned the hard way the
lesson Sarah hasn’t—the past has a way of catching up with you.
Sarah Tamlin has a terrible secret, one she’s kept
for ten years. It’s a secret that has required so many lies, she’s
had to keep a ledger so she knows what she’s said to whom. And it
seems those secrets keep multiplying, including the secret about her
banker father’s dementia and the soft-hearted loans she’s had to
personally cover. An intelligent woman, she’s made some foolish
choices. All in all, she’s woven a very tangled web by the time she
meets the handsome outlaw who will confront her with the truth—about
herself, about her hopes, about her desires.
Wyatt is taken with Sarah right from the start and
Sarah’s not exactly immune to the sexy, dangerous, ex-train robber,
either. But her past is nipping at her heels as the train whistle
announces two new arrivals that will change her life forever. Faced
with taking the right path or the easy path, both Wyatt and Sarah
have to make life-altering decisions. Whether Wyatt is prepared to
trust Sarah’s love despite her lies and whether Sarah can place her
faith in Wyatt despite his criminal past will determine their future
happiness.
Romantic, sweet and sensual, The Rustler, is sure to
please fans of romance and the Stone Creek series. As usual with Ms.
Miller’s stories, the characters are multi-dimensional and complex;
unique, yet with familiar hopes and dreams. As the attraction
between Wyatt and Sarah deepens, the anticipated happy ending veers
in an unexpected direction that makes this novel a real page-turner.
With vibrant prose, fully-realized characters, an engrossing plot
set amid the dangers of the Old West and a dash of Eastern guile
thrown in for good measure, Ms. Miller has hit another bulls-eye. |
