Another Dawn

Betrayal had ruined Banner Coleman's wedding day and on her wedding night she was a jilted bride. Now old seeds of greed and desire are harvesting a scandal --- and Banner's affair with an old family friend could shatter a friendship and a family.
The Texas countryside was wide and wild, the barn was warm and musty, and the passion between Banner Coleman and her parents' best friend, Jake Langston, was going to be the start of trouble. Betrayal had ruined Banner's wedding day, and now on her wedding night she was a jilted bride. Jake was the toughest cowhand in Texas, yet Banner had broken down his resistance, setting loose emotions neither of them expected. Now Jake and Banner were caught up in a scandal that could tear apart a friendship and a family. But theirs wasn't the only sin in this rough town outside of lusty Fort Worth. Greed and desire stretched back to a wagon train journey twenty years before, and this cattle land would explode once more with a man's hunger and a woman's enduring love.
"The man lunged to his feet, clumsily drew his pistol, cocked it, and aimed. His stocky thighs caught the edge of the table, jarring it and rocking the glasses full of liquor that stood on it. One sloshed over. A cigar rolled from an ashtray and burned a small hole in the green felt top. Jake Langston sighed tiredly. He had come in for a game or two of stimulating poker, a glass or two of stinging whiskey, perhaps a satisfying tumble or two in one of the beds upstairs—all to fill the hours until his train pulled out. Now here he was involved in an argument over a hand of poker with a sodbuster named Kermit something or other, who he hoped had more talent handling a plow than he had a gun. “You calling me a cheater?” the farmer demanded. Unaccustomed to drinking any more than an occasional Saturday night beer, he was none too sober and, though his feet were well planted, he swayed like a sailor on a turbulent sea. His beefy face was perspiring and flushed. The pistol pointed directly at Jake’s chest was wavering in an unsteady hand."