Crime of Passion

About the Book

When Skye Danley takes a much needed vacation at a guest ranch, the last thing she expects is to fall in love...and find a dead body.  Widowed a year ago, Skye has come to the Diamond T to dig up a time capsule she buried their with her late husband when they were children.  She hopes to find closure in doing so.  She is completely unprepared for the effect the Diamond T's head wrangler, Dillon Channing, has on her.  Skye has always vowed to never fall in love.  She and Jesse married strictly out of friendship, and now that he is gone, she sees no way to ever have a man in her future again.

Raised by a father who was cold toward her mother, and who taught Skye to hide her feelings, she is afraid to open up and fall in love.  Skye does love children, and would love to have kids of her own, but is not willing to risk her heart in marriage.  Yet she can't help but be drawn to Dillon and his two young daughters.

For the past five years, Dillon has lived and worked on the Diamond T, where he's made a home for his daughters, ages six and eight.  The girls' mother left years ago after a bitter divorce, and abandoned Cindy and Melissa to the care of their father.  While Dillon is immediately attracted to Skye, and drawn to her more and more as he gets to know her, he is cautious of exposing his girls to anyone who might hurt them, and leery of risking his own heart to love again.  He tells himself Skye is from the city and does not fit into the world in which he lives.  He doesn't want to become involved with a woman like her, or with any woman for that matter.  

One morning while the guests are out on a trail ride, Skye sets off by herself on horseback in search of the trees beneath which she and Jesse buried the time capsule.  Dillon follows her.  Suddenly, Skye's horse spooks.  Skye is thrown, unhurt, but when she rises from the ground, she sees what spooked the horse.  Stella Conroy, one of the guests of the ranch, lies dead beneath the trees.

Dillon and Skye are soon caught up in trying to help the local sheriff solve the crime.  When a second body turns up later, Skye and Dillon are further drawn into the investigation.  Solving a CRIME OF PASSION may be a big challenge for the two of them, but learning to love again may prove to be an even bigger one.

About the Author

Brenda Mott grew up loving horses and books. She wrote stories as a child, and her sixth grade teacher made copies of them and put them in the school library. As an adult, Brenda first began to write professionally when she sold an article to Horse & Rider magazine. She continued writing articles for a number of years, before focusing on writing romance. She now writes contemporary romance novels--most often featuring cowboys--as well as romantic suspense. A former barrel racer, Brenda lives in a small mountain town in Colorado with her own cowboy hero—her husband, David. Her son, Chance, is an accomplished BMX biker, and her daughter, Loretta, shares Brenda’s love of books and horses, and is a published poet. They own a menagerie of pets. Brenda is currently at work on her next novel.