When Clint Carmichael died, he left a shattered wife and four children. Someone had to take over the reins of the Starlight Ranch. That someone was 23-year-old Deacon. Now, 10 years later, the multimillion-dollar ranch is running smoothly under his command. His family, not so much. Deacon’s siblings don’t always appreciate his inherent need to take care of everything and everybody. But he’s determined to carry on the family legacy to honor their father

Eighteen months after the loss of his wife, Deputy Jasper Goodspeed wasn’t ready to move on. He’d learned to get up every morning, do his job, and smile when necessary. But enjoying himself wasn’t on his list of things to do. On the evening of his first murder investigation, he was halfway through a night of drinking himself into oblivion. Forgetting was a good thing, if only for one night a month.

Hank Patterson refuses to let his buddy Jake slowly kill himself with alcohol. Hank’s plan to expand the Brotherhood Protectors into Colorado will only work if he can hire the best men for the job. He wants Jake, and sends fellow Coloradan, Kujo, to pull Jake out of an alcohol-induced haze to work for the team. Hank’s contact has a place they can set up operations while flying under the radar—a flailing dude ranch, run by a former Marine Gunnery sergeant and his feisty daughter.

Loner Boone Hendrix left the military with ghosts that haunt him. He lives with his dog Atlas on a farm in Vermont. Alone. Just the way he likes it. Until he rescues a half-drowned, beautiful brunette from his river. Gemma Newhouse is the daughter of the richest man in America, and from the abrasions on her wrists and her drugged state, she’s on the run from someone dangerous. She’s nothing like Boone expected—sweet, smart, and likes baking—and she ignites a fierce need inside him.

It’s one thing to wake up in New Mexico and not remember how you got there or why you were there. It’s quite another to realize you also have no idea who you are. It was the face of an angel that saved him from panicking. A guardian angel, that is, in the form of a nurse named Ember. She was a light in a very dark tunnel and she decided to call him John Sherlock.