Her father left her the ranch.
He left half of it to the man she believes killed her brother.
Mara Quinn swore she would never return to Black Hollow.
Not after her younger brother died there.
Not after Knox Callahan disappeared from her life without explaining what really happened that night.
Ten years later, Mara's father is dead.
The authorities call it suicide.
Mara doesn't believe them.
Then the will is read.
Half of Black Hollow Ranch belongs to her.
The other half belongs to Knox.
He is no longer the boy she remembers.
Knox is harder now. Scarred. Dangerous. A former rodeo rider who has spent the last decade running the ranch while Mara built a life hundreds of miles away.
He also knows exactly how her brother died.
And he refuses to leave.
Then Mara discovers the message her father recorded before his death:
If they tell you I killed myself, they're lying.
Someone burns one of the barns.
Livestock begin dying.
A warning appears demanding that Mara sell the land.
And buried beneath Black Hollow is evidence powerful people have spent nearly two decades killing to protect.
Toxic waste.
Altered records.
Missing men.
And the truth about the night Mara's brother died.
The deeper Mara digs, the harder it becomes to separate the men who betrayed her from the men who were trying to keep her alive.
Especially Knox.
Because the man she has hated for ten years didn't kill her brother.
He let Mara believe he did because somebody threatened to kill her next.
Now the people who buried the truth beneath Black Hollow want the ranch back.
Knox has spent a decade refusing to give it to them.
And this time, Mara isn't running.
A high-heat dark cowboy romance featuring enemies-to-lovers tension, forced proximity, second-chance attraction, a protective cowboy antihero, family betrayal, murder, small-town secrets and western romantic suspense.
