The Cold, Cold Ground: A Dark Gothic Western Romance (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798253201961)

A Civil War assassin came west to work the land.
A mail-order bride arrived to build a future.
Now they're trapped together on a dying homestead.

Birdy Johnson survived the Civil War-but the war never really left him.

A Union sharpshooter in a Colored regiment, Birdy learned how to kill men from distances most soldiers never lived long enough to master. When the fighting ended, the hatred followed him home.

Now he drifts from town to town as a cowboy and horse whisperer, never staying long enough to build a life... or lose one.

Until he takes a job on a remote Texas homestead.

The man who hires him, Emry Holladay, is an eccentric dreamer determined to tame the wild land. He has plans for a prosperous ranch-and a mail-order bride arriving any day to help him build it.

Then Marta König steps down from the wagon.

A grieving Amish widow with callused hands and a spine of iron, Marta didn't come west for romance. She came west to survive.

But the homestead is already cracking under Emry's unraveling mind.

As the land turns hostile and danger closes in, Birdy and Marta find themselves drawn together by something neither of them expected.

Because when violence comes to the frontier, it takes a killer to stop it.

And Birdy Johnson knows exactly how.

Readers will find:

Civil War veteran assassin / sharpshooter hero
Mail-order bride
Forbidden attraction
Isolated frontier homestead
Forced proximity
Protective hero / touch-her-and-die energy
Outlaws & frontier violence
Found family built in hardship
Gothic Western atmosphere
Interracial historical romance