Wyoming Wildfire by Elizabeth Lane

Jessie Hammond was frantic when her brother was arrested by the Marshal for the murder of local rancher Allister Gates. Frank had been on the property that night, but it was to steal back the Arabian Horse he considered his property. Frank and Jessie raise horses, and Frank hoped to breed the beautiful black Arabian horse to the local mustangs and raise them for the money. Allister Gates had wanted the horse from the first time he saw him as Frank offloaded him from the train. But when the Hammonds ran into money troubles, Allister Gates bought their mortgage, and claimed their farm... not to mention the Arabian.

Jessie does the only thing she can think of, and holds the Marshall, Matt Langtry, at gunpoint to make him free her brother. But while she succeeds in getting him away from the Marshal, he is still handcuffed, and while her brother rides his horse away, ahe and the Marshal are trapped by a lynch mob coming for her brother.

After getting them free, she and Matt track her brother, only to find that he has been killed when the horse he was riding stopped short at a deep gully and threw him from its back. As Matt helps her retrieve and then bury his body, he finds himself incredibly attracted to her, as well as starting to believe her claim that her brother and she were both innocent of murder. He comforts her in her grief, and though he cautions himself about coming to care for her, it's already too late: he's in love with her and just as determined to find out the truth of Allister Gates' death as she is.

She soon has other problems, such as the men of Gates' brother coming to divest her of her house and home. She takes everything she can and sets the place on fire, moving to a soddy in the middle of the prairie. It's old and leaky and needs patching, but she figures she can stay there while she looks for evidence of who really killed Allister Gates and framed her brother for the murder.

At first her suspicions center on the rumors that Virgil Gates, Allister's brother, and Allister's wife, Lillian, were having an affair. When she discovers for herself that this is true, she assumes that Virgil killed his own brother. But Matt finds out for himself that Virgil could not have been the killer... he was in town, playing cards with some of his men in a bar when his brother was murdered. So who could have done it?

Jessie and Matt continue to grow closer as Matt tries to look out for her against the Gates's farmhands, most of whom are little better than hired thugs. But wnen Jessie figures out who was responsible for the murder and goes to confront the killer, she may end up dead at the hands of the Gates family or their men. Will Jessie now be blamed for another murder and the firing of the Gates mansion, or can Matt save her and declare his love to her before one of them ends up being killed? Is there a future for the Marshal and the lovely fugitive?

This was another Romance that was better than I thought it was going to be. Westerns aren't exactly my favorite kind of historical romances, but this one was very good. I got caught up in the feelings and emotions that Jessie's story and predicament evoked in me, and it completely drew me in. Even though it took only a couple of hours to read, I almost literally couldn't put it down until the story was over, it was just that good.

While nothing about the book's characters or settings particularly stands out as special or different, the storytelling is very well done, evoking real emotions as you read. This wasn't exactly one of my favorite stories, but it stood up out of the dross and muck that is a great deal of romances from the two major monthly book publishers, Harlequin and Silhouette. If you need a good summer read, this book is a good one to try.