“Get your damn foot out of my door.”

      This time it was a subdued roar, delivered from a twisted face of anger. “Do I have to call the sheriff to toss you out on your fanny?” He looked her up and down. “Though unless my eyes deceive me, it might take two husky men to do the job.”

      Alicia felt the flush climb her cheeks. It was an insult, delivered honestly—but an insult, nevertheless. And as the town’s schoolteacher, she had until this moment been accorded the courtesy due to her position. She gritted her teeth. That her weight was, and always had been, a problem was neither here nor there. But this blatant intention to offend her had touched a sore spot, one she guarded closely.

      “Two husky men?” Her brow jerked upward. “More like three,” she answered crisply, “unless the blacksmith is one of them.”

      Acclaim for Carolyn Davidson’s recent titles

      The Marriage Agreement

      “Davidson uses her considerable skills

      to fashion a plausible, first-class

      marriage-of-convenience romance.”

      —Romantic Times BOOKclub

      Colorado Courtship

      “Davidson deftly mixes courtship

      and a marriage of conveniece with the intrigue

      of gold hunting, robbery and murder.”

      —Romantic Times BOOKclub

      Texas Gold

      “Davidson delivers a story

      fraught with sexual tension.”

      —Romantic Times BOOKclub

      A Marriage by Chance

      “This deftly written novel about

      loss and recovery is a skillful handling

      of the traditional Western, with the

      added elements of family conflict

      and a moving love story.”

      —Romantic Times BOOKclub

      The Tender Stranger

      “Davidson wonderfully captures gentleness

      in the midst of heart-wrenching challenges,

      portraying the extraordinary possibilities

      that exist within ordinary marital love.”

      —Publishers Weekly

      Redemption

      Carolyn Davidson