5.0 out of 5 stars
Timeless Tales review 4.5 stars, February 14, 2003
This review is from: The Man in Black (Paperback)
In February of 1990, Captain Lawton Kane is a Special Forces Army Ranger. His assignment is to kill a drug lord. What he finds is a kidnapped little girl. As the drug lord is dying, he promises revenge and that Lawton will die. Eleven years have passed since that day. He is now a Rancher and participates in Western reenactments in Graveyard Gulch, a partly restored frontier mining camp. That's when he first sees her. The group is called the Gulch Gang and they consider him a bit of a loner, a lone wolf. The group is amazed when they see him dancing with Melissa.
Melissa Anne Hartford is visiting her stepsister and best friend, Jo, in Arizona. Jo persuades Melissa to go to Graveyard Gulch with her. She sees him during the show, when a knife lands on the ground at her feet and he comes to retrieve it. She finds herself entrapped by the strangest and fiercest eyes she's ever seen. They are a pale silvery-gray, hard and pure as the desert sun's light. Time stops as she turns and freezes. Her head spins and her knees threaten to buckle, but she cannot look away nor escape the impaling intensity of those incredible eyes. Jo is trying to find a way to distract Melissa from her grief for her father and fiancé, who her father handpicked for her and she really didn't want to marry. She now feels responsible since she was wishing for a way to get out of marrying him, and whatever she wishes for sometimes comes true. Her father had always controlled her life and made all the decisions. After a group of sick kids come to visit Graveyard Gulch, she now knows what she wants to do with the rest of her life, work with sick children and be with Lawton. Will her next wish be granted?
From the moment they look into each other's eyes, they both know something is there. Lawton is afraid to get close to anyone due to the promise of revenge and the fact that his wife's car was tampered with, causing her death. So he tries to keep his distance from Melissa, but the attraction is getting difficult to resist. Especially when she joins the group, and she is wishing to get to know Lawton Kane. She feels they have something in common, always on the outside looking in. When she first asks him to dance, she feels the electricity between them. Lawton is used to watching his back, but when Melissa starts getting threatening phone calls and someone tries to blow up her car, his military training kicks in to protect her. He invites her to come and stay with him at his ranch where he can protect her better. When she is at Jo's, packing some of her things, Jo takes a few minutes to fill in Lawton on Melissa's background, including being kidnapped as a child and the Rangers finding her. Lawton has already realized that Melissa is that child he carried out of the forest 11 years earlier. And he tells Jo it was he who found her. Jo also tells Lawton that Melissa's father had her hypnotized to forget the kidnapping. Lawton then realizes who tried to kill her, The stepbrother of the man he killed, Santiago. Will he be able to protect her from Santiago's henchmen while he fights his own demons of wanting to take her into his arms and make her his?
I really enjoyed this book. Once I started it, I couldn't stop reading. It keeps you on the edge of your seat, wondering what will happen next. It has suspense and romance and is definitely worth reading. As the old saying says, "Be careful of what you wish for, you might get it."
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