Ash Hollow

The sun never truly rose in Ash Hollow-it just glared.
A pitiless, bleached-out stretch of land where cowboys traded bullets before breakfast and women learned fast how to keep knives in their garters and their hearts in their throats.

It was into this dust-choked little hell that Celia Rowe rode, coat too clean, boots too soft, jaw clenched like a fist.
She came for her brother.
What she found was the Crimson Spur Hotel-three stories of creaking floorboards, rusted chandeliers, showgirls who laughed too loudly, and a saloon that smelled like broken promises and spiced whiskey.

Everyone said the owner, Weston Devereaux, was part outlaw, part devil, and all too beautiful to trust.
He ran the place like a kingdom-possessive, cold-eyed, dangerous.
Rumor said he knew every dirty deal that passed through Ash Hollow, and more than a few of the bodies buried just beyond the chapel fence.

Celia didn't care.
She slipped past the velvet-curtained parlor and lied her way into a housekeeping job with trembling hands and a gun strapped under her petticoat.
She had questions, and Weston had answers-even if he spoke them with smoke and sin on his tongue.

And if the job pulled her deeper into the mire of half-dressed girls and criminal dealings...
If the handsome devil in charge watched her like he owned her breath...
If she felt something wicked when he touched her wrist too long...

She'd have to survive that, too.

Because blood called to blood-and Celia Rowe would burn the whole damn hotel to the ground if it meant finding her brother.