Forever His Texas Bride

Broday finishes her Bachelors of Battle Creek trilogy (after Twice a Texas Bride) with this sweet but faltering story. In 1879, mustang wrangler Brett Liberty seeks solitude on the Texas plains, only to find the heart of a feisty young woman. A chance meeting as they share a jail cell is all it takes for sparks to ignite between Brett and Rayna Harper. He falls for her gentle touch and fiery hair. She mostly likes the moccasins he’s promised that she’ll inherit after he’s hanged by a racist sheriff for the “crime” of being part Iroquois. Thanks to a timely intervention, they’re both freed and he’s able to take her to Battle Creek, Tex., to start her new life. But where Rayna goes, trouble usually follows. The story bounces back and forth between battles and intimacy with impressive regularity, with a little bit of every imaginable western romance trope and Native American stereotype thrown in for good measure. New readers may feel disconnected from some of the characters, especially since many of them are only very briefly revisited. Agent: Gail Fortune, Talbot Fortune Agency. (Dec.)