Alexandra Tarkington is an heiress, but she’s also one smart cookie.  With a romantic disaster on the horizon, she sets off by herself from New York to Texas.  What’s the big deal?  Well, it’s the 1850s and a woman traveling alone can be dangerous.  Using padding to hide her figure and dust to cover her hair, she still manages to meet a nice man, Gabe, on the stagecoach.  Nice – hmmm – he is also out to prove that Alexandra’s father is swindling people.  Two more characters are out to find this heiress – the spurned almost fiancé and someone bent on revenge.  While Alexandra is trying to make a life for herself, making friends, painting pictures for her dad’s hotel and teaching art at the school, Gabe may have fallen in love.  Not surprisingly, Alexandra is starting to have romantic thoughts right back.

The romance is very light and consistent with the time period of waiting for an official courtship to make feelings known.  The town of Mesquite Springs may be small but there are huge things on the horizon and turning pages, I quickly got immersed into the ‘what will happen next’ drama and enjoyed every page.

While this is the third book in the series, they do not have to be read in order.  Each is a separate story, with the common thread being the town of Mesquite Springs and different characters highlighted in each book.

This is the perfect weekend read, beach read or just want to be entertained read!