Lucky Penny by Catherine Anderson

Lucky Penny:
To support her orphaned niece, impoverished Brianna O'Keefe accepts work with a Colorado rancher. To guard herself from unwanted attention, she resorts to a harmless little lie: that she's married to a Denver gold miner named David Paxton. When her boss forces her to write to her "husband," hoping he'll take Brianna off his hands, she can only pray that there is no real David Paxton who can expose her.

When Colorado marshal David Paxton gets a letter from a stranger claiming to be his wife and pleading with him to come for her and his daughter, he dutifully sets out to find this woman and the child he may have sired. What stuns Brianna is that Davis is convinced the young girl is, in fact, his. As David and Brianna's wary attraction blossoms into deeper desire, David warms to the idea of a ready-made family. But can his dream survive Brianna's lingering distrust--and his own secrets.

I'm quickly coming to love any of Catherine Anderson's stories; she writes honest characters and realistic romances. This book was set in Colorado in the late 1800's, I love western romance and David was the perfect gunslinger turned marshal, he's duty bound and almost honest to a fault. Brianna is a tough, stubborn hard working woman willing to do anything to support her niece. They were the perfect match and the sparks they ignited throughout the book kept me turning pages. The slow building of trust between Brianna and David was charming and filled with adventure. Catherine made it easy to visualize the world she created in Lucky Penny, and although this book could be considered part of a series, it completely stands alone.