The Windswept Flame

Broken-irreparably broken. The violent deaths of her father and the young man she'd been engaged to marry, had irrevocably broken Cedar Dale's heart. Her mother's heart had been broken, as well-shattered by the loss of her own true love. Thus, pain and anguish-fear and despair-found Cedar Dale, and her mother Flora, returned to the small western town where life had once been happy and filled with hope. Perhaps there she and her mother would find some resemblance of truly living life-instead of merely existing. Yet, the enduring of a broken heart-the fear it breeds-lingers in the soul. In the depths of her splintered self, Cedar wondered if she would ever know true warmth of being again. She was doubtful that she would. Until the day a chance meeting with a dream from her past caused a flicker of wonder to ignite in her bosom. As a child, Cedar Dale had adored the handsome rancher's son, Tom Evans-followed after him with the infatuated exuberance of a newborn calf. And when chance brought her face-to-face with the object of her childhood fascination once more, Cedar Dale began to believe that perhaps her fragmented heart could be healed-that perhaps life could be more than despair and pain. Yet could Cedar truly hope to win the regard of such a man above men as was Tom Evans? A man kept occupied with hard work and ambition-a man so desperately sought after by seemingly every woman?