Three stories about three reluctant heroes who call the West home and three citified heroines determined to rope them.

The Great Cowboy Race by Georgina Gentry takes a runaway heiress and enters her in a race for her freedom from a domineering mother and a petulant fiancée. Disguised as a boy, Henrietta Jennings doesn’t fool handsome cowboy, Comanche Jones, for long. She may need the prize to gain her freedom, but he needs the prize to gain independence. As they duel along the trail leading to Chicago and the big payoff, a rising passion complicates the desire to win at all costs because this race may just cost their hearts.

Based on the Great Cowboy Race held in June 1893, this short story is filled with both fun and romance. As always, Ms. Gentry’s characters are a delight and her cowboy hero is flawed, fallible and fabulous.

Moonlight Whispers by Teresa Bodwell is about a woman whose luck just ran out. Stranded in a one horse town aptly named Hell Gate as she desperately searches for her errant father, Boston-bred Isabelle has no where to turn until rancher Lucas Warring takes pity on her and, at the urging of the saloon proprietor, saves Isabelle from a fate worse than death. As his cook, she may share his house but she vows she won’t share his bed. However, circumstances may just make that a vow she can not keep.

This sensual romance sounds all the right notes as propriety plays second fiddle to attraction.

The Reluctant Hero by Lorraine Heath pits a determined dime novelist against a sheriff decidedly disinclined to play her next hero. Despite using her best arguments, Amanda Jackson cannot crack the carefully crafted defenses of Matthew Knight to find out what makes this foil of bank robbers tick. That is until she applies her womanly wiles—and gets more than she bargained for. Not only from Matthew, but in coming to terms with her own assumptions about grit, courage and what makes a hero.

Lorraine Heath demonstrates her story-telling prowess, packing this tale to the brim with a great plot, multi-dimensional characters, unexpected twists and an emotional punch that will have you turning the pages and yearning for more western romances from Ms. Heath’s skillful pen.