Divorcee Penny Keller arrives in Bisbee, Arizona to apply for a job as dispatcher for the Cochise County Sheriff's Department. She soon finds herself embroiled in local politics and feuds, becomes a new bone of contention in the long term enmity between Chief Criminal Deputy Pete Lawson, her nominal boss, and Deputy Valdez Hawke, and plays a significant part in busting a major drug ring.
Deputy Val Hawke, embittered by a painful divorce, devotes his all to his law enforcement career. Breaking a major drug ring operating in the county is one of his goals. Why is the boss throwing stumbling blocks in his path? And where does the pretty new dispatcher fit into the whole picture? He hasn't got time for the attraction he feels for her, but it happens anyway.
Penny's Luck is the first book of a planned trilogy, Copper Stars of Cochise, centering around law enforcement personnel in Cochise County, Arizona. Watch for Mollie's McGuire and Jessie's Legacy in 2005.
Chronic overachiever Kit Poindexter arrives in Arizona with a firm goal: as quickly as possible, she'll amass the million dollars she needs to save her late father's foundering firm from her half-brother's mismanagement. Then she'll head back to Boston to take over Poindexter Enterprises. A chance meeting with gorgeous Bret McClintock dumps an unexpected distraction into her power-suited lap.
Kit assumes Bret is a blue-collar guy when he rescues her from a blizzard on a mountain road. They spend a weekend in a rustic cabin, sharing a single sleeping bag, which forces intimacy Kit is not prepared to deal with. Later, her preconceived ideas are shattered when she learns Bret is really a Ph.D. teaching anthropology at the university. She is angry and embarrassed when her snobbery is revealed, but he's willing to forgive and forget. He even charms her into a camping trip. There she meets his Indian friends and learns their land, where Bret is studying earlier peoples seeking to prove a link to the modem Apache, is the same piece her boss wants to acquire for a resort development.
Bret's Apache attorney friend warns him that his new lady is probably a spy. Bret's temper flares. Once again he's been mistaken for a brainless hunk and used! He treats Kit coldly and soon takes her home. Now she must choose between doing what she knows is right
Fran Jonas returns to the "rez", fleeing the brutal abuse which terminated her modeling career. Too many wenching losses have left her afraid to love.
Ben Yazzie, burned by a woman who demanded more than he could give, is determined to find success with his small airline, not become another Indian drunkard. The distraction of another woman is the last thing he needs.
Both Fran and Ben are seeking the spiritual and ethnic roots they lost in moving into the modern world. Fran trusts Ben with her safety, even her spiritual healing, but not her heart. Ben finds Fran an irresistible puzzle. Can he find the answer while he keeps his emotions untouched?
Captain Andrea "Andy" Hollis resolves to be a soldier first and a woman second. For Andy, militarily correct is the only way to go. The arrival of Colonel Cory Costain, new unit commander, puts her principles and perspective to test.
An easy-going extrovert who prefers to treat his subordinates as friends, Cory is far too attractive for Andy's peace of mind. He's determined to get his stiff and starchy Executive Officer to unbend, re-join the human race and be all the woman he knows she can be.
Thrown together in the torrid tropics when war breaks out in Central America, Andy and Cory learn all is fair in love and war. But which is it to be? Cory's weapons of choice are tender words, lingering glances, and gentle touches. It's a hard-fought struggle while Cory battles Andy and the shadow of her domineering father to convince her she has every right to win.
Librarian Emily Dennison has always loved history, but catapulted into 1889 Tombstone, she finds life far from the idyll she imagined. Meeting Zach Tremaine, a newspaperman from Philadelphia, she gets involved in his quest to rescue his younger sister from her abusive paramour, gambler Jake McEuen. This leads to more adventure than Emily ever thought possible. Eventually she has to confess to Zach that she is from far away, not in distance but in time. Fearful of being torn back to 2000, but missing her modern conveniences, she hardly dares to love him though she aches to.
Zach isn’t quite sure what to make of Emily, so different from any woman he has ever known but so sweet and spunky that she wins his admiration and soon his heart. Just when he thinks he has convinced her they belong together, a bolt of lightning tears her away. Or was it Joker Jake McEuen, seeking revenge? Can Zach live long enough to search until he finds her? Can she get back to tomorrow in time to save him from McEuen’s murderous rage?
Proverbial “poor little rich girl” Melissa Hartford, burdened by guilt and grief over her father’s death, is instantly attracted to retired Special Forces officer Lawton Kane. She soon learns he also has his ghosts, and his are even worse than hers. His are out to kill them! Does she dare trust his strength and power to sustain rather than restrain her?
Haunted by the past that threatens to bring danger and death to all he holds dear, Lawton is drawn to Melissa’s natural beauty, innocence and sweetness but he dares not let her get too close lest his enemies target him through her. He fears he can give her nothing but pain and danger. Still, he aches to let her into his lonely world. When their mutual enemy closes in, they must join forces to survive but this poses an even greater danger for they may keep their lives but lose their timid wounded hearts!
Second book in The Copper Stars of Cochise series, following Penny’s Luck.
After ten years as a widowed single parent, the last thing Mollie Rodriguez expects is that her new boss, Wade McGuire, will turn her orderly world upside down. When he rents the small apartment on her lot, proximity increases the pressure. Her position as head dispatcher for the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department puts her in the midst of a major case involving rustling and attempted murder. Then her twelve year old twins are kidnapped, bringing the puzzling case much too close to home.
Wade is determined to overcome the ghosts of his prior life and position in Texas that ended with his near-fatal shooting. That mishap cost him both his job and his family. Now he has to face down those demons to save Mollie’s twins from a crazed rancher. If he can survive that, he may have a chance to win her love.
Mari’s life centers around remote Red Canyon, Arizona and her horse training. Her secondary goal is earning her high s! chool diploma. When a controversial construction project starts nearby, her ordered life is shaken by changes. Horse training may be dangerous work, but danger is relative. She learns some relatives can be dangerous indeed and loyalties may be severely tested.
As superintendent on his first big construction job, Dusty Layne has to prove his capabilities. A chance meeting with a young woman leads to an unlikely friendship. When that converges with environmental protests he confronts a major challenge. How can he reconcile these issues while he saves Mari from the danger created by her loyalty to him? Can he even save her from himself?
"Relative Dangers is a heart-warming romance that details the best and worse of people in a fashion that will leave you breathless. Marisa is a strong woman that has dealt with the worst life threw at her and remained t! rue to herself. Dustin is a good man that admits his past mistakes and wants more in his life than work and a distant family." - Tammy, Fallen Angel Reviews; Four Angels
When I compiled my first poetry book, Mother – Daughter Lines, I intentionally left out a number of verses I had written over the years. First, they did not seem to fit with the first book. Second, they were far too voluminous in number to be included. Last, I was not ready to share them and their emotional baggage with a world that included my husband, for whom a separate mass of poetry had been created over the course of our relationship.
Here are those missing verses. This group of poems shares a common theme, one that seemed to occupy my thoughts a great deal for much of my life--the many faces of love, especially the passion-inspiring love of female for male, girl for boy and woman for man. Perhaps it is natural that I would write romantic fiction, also. Now in my fourth year of widowhood and the last quarter of my life’s pattern, it is finally time to share these heartfelt lines, blood, tears, warts and all.
January Farrell comes to Riverton, Arizona to follow her dream of working in law enforcement. Little does she guess her training officer will seriously ruffle her normal level-headed manner as well as stir her libido. He manages to press every hot button she has. Raised a tomboy who tagged after her adored big brother, Jan can hold her own in the male-centered world of the squad room. She can even face the harsher aspects of her chosen career with aplomb, but can she tolerate Thad Gunn’s sly and hurtful quirks and resist the tug of lust long enough to get through probation?
Although a good cop, Thad Gunn carries some heavy baggage. He’s known as a tough but fair officer, and one who puts his rookies through the wringer. When he is assigned to train January, all he can think of is making her quit. Somehow he must get her out of the line of fire, clear of the danger zone, sensing that it would kill him to lose her. He isn’t sure he knows what love is but he does know he desperately needs to keep her safe. When she won’t cooperate, what can he do?
Dealing with the day-to-day business of police work and finally tracking down a dangerous serial rapist, Jan and Thad, both individually and together, must confront a deluge of challenges before January gets her Gunn.
