Two people eager to leave the past behind.Salem The pretty young maid looks as white as her privileged white mistress, but those few drops of slave blood that run through Salem’s veins have been more than enough to keep her enslaved her whole life.The war has long since ended, but its end has been of no practical benefit to Salem. Her former owner refuses to let her go. She bides her time and when the moment is right, she makes her escape. Traveling westward and using various disguises and aliases, she successfully hides in plain sight. All goes well until the stagecoach stops at an isolated Colorado way station and a gang of murdering thieves attack. Salem is the sole survivor.Slade Slade Pendragon left his old life of wealth and luxury behind to become a successful Colorado rancher. While out checking on his cattle, he comes across the massacre and its one survivor.Salem is grateful to be rescued, but she finds her rescuer to be overbearing, rude, and not very likable. And Slade’s opinion of her is not much better.Despite a mutual low opinion of one another, he decides to help her get to her destination. When a flash flood forces them to turn back, he has no choice but to let her stay at his Dragon’s Lair ranch until the floodwaters subside.At Dragon’s Lair Ranch, Salem and Slade’s initial adversarial relationship gradually evolves into something more . . . promising. But no matter how promising things become, Salem cannot let him in on the secrets she holds close to her heart. If Slade discovers the truth about her, the new life they have begun to build together will be no more. Little does she know that Slade harbors dark secrets of his own.But secrets seldom remain hidden forever. When Salem learns a visitor from her past will soon arrive at the ranch, she knows she will be exposed as a charlatan. She must make a choice. Stay or flee. No matter what she does, she will lose the man she has come to love.Will the secrets Salem and Slade keep from one another tear them apart? Or will their love be strong enough to overcome those secrets?
