After Red O'Neal delivers a beating to his half-brother Daniel for courting his sister Antoinette, she is sent to a convent until agreeing to marry a much older, wealthier man. But Antoinette manages to send a letter to her betrothed Lorenz MacDonald about the danger. After he rescues her on the journey to the convent, Lorenz's parents allow the marriage rather than lose their son.
When the neighboring ranch becomes under attack by Comanche raiders, Antoinette and her mother-in-law Anna are caught in a fight for life and death. Can their family survive the dangers of the violent Western frontier?
Steady sales - first book of the series is a bestseller.
Chapter 1: A Family Divided
Daniel turned from the stallion he was breaking for his employer, Jeremiah “Red” O’Neal, with a wide smile on his face and his grey eyes alight with pleasure. “That is one fine horse…” The smile died as he saw the set look on Red’s face. Daniel’s sixth sense signaled danger and this time danger came from his employer and half-brother, if his white mother and MacDonald were to be believed. The Comanche raid when Daniel was eight had broken all ties with his white family.
When his Comanche family was captured by the U.S. Army, he was recognized as white and sent to a fort in Kansas. There he had taken the surname Hunter. He refused to acknowledge his white mother and that reputed stranger from a planet among the stars named as his father. He couldn’t explain the two hearts his brother Lorenz, sister Margareatha, and possibly half-brother, Red, possessed while he did not. He simply ignored that fact.
Red stopped in front of the young man. “You stepped over the line, boy. Now you’ll get a lesson.” Red drove his fist into the young man’s stomach.
Daniel twisted his body out of the way, not sure why the attack was under way, but knowing his chances weren’t good. He whirled back, his left coming up towards Red’s chin. He missed by less than an inch, and felt a fist smash into his nose. Desperately, he swung into Red’s rib cage driving the older man back. Red shrugged and dove in again, his fists slamming into Daniel one after another.
Neither Red nor Daniel heard Margareatha screaming. “Let him alone you barbarian, or I’ll blow your head off, so help me God!”
