Matt's rough-and-tumble childhood taught him to size up a situation at a hundred paces. And to end his standoff with respectable society he knows he has to take a wife. Ellen agrees to act as a mother for the two boys he's sworn to protect, if he will be a father for the two children she brings to the union. It is a business arrangement. But nothing has prepared him for the desires the former saloon girl incites. She gentles him like a newborn colt, until he longs to be saddled with all the trappings of a real marriage. Until he understands he's found a woman to heal his orphaned heart.