Jolie McKibben figured that when a woman has to choose between death and marriage to a total stranger, she must be in a desperate predicament. And Jolie, standing under the hot sun with a noose around her neck, surely was. But something -- the defiant lift of her chin or her frightened blue-green eyes -- had caught the attention of Daniel Beckham. He stopped the hanging by invoking the town's wedding ordinance and married the pretty "outlaw" on the spot.

So Jolie's hide was saved...only her pride was wounded! Daniel didn't believe she was innocent, and he barely spoke on the drive out to his farm. Worse still, two desperados were on her trail, and she didn't dare confide her troubles to her new husband. Yet under the star-splashed Western sky, Jolie trembled whenever this rugged giant of a man came near. Now she hungered for his kisses, dreamed of his touch, and knew she would do anything a woman could to win his love -- to be, with her body and her soul, truly Daniel's bride.