Breath Without Life

A discouraged rancher. A driven barrel racer. One sees a dead-end future. The other plans to dazzle the world. Colt Cooper is besieged by the single women of Crook County, each fighting to stake her own claim on the handsome rancher. Women are a foolish waste of energy, his past has proven, so focusing on his horse training business and overworked brother is time better spent. Though when a feisty redhead shows up for one of his horses, his thinking falters. It seems her sites are set on only one goal, and it's not him. Betsy Murphy's arrival at Cooper Bar-6 Ranch is all business; she needs to replace her injured champion. Colt must pick her a barrel racing horse, help her train it, and send her back to Texas in time for the Nationals. Now, if only she could concentrate on the horse and not the man…

He saves lives. She heals the injured. They've gone their separate ways, each choosing noble paths until Providence brings them back together. But as she helps rehabilitate his wounded body, can she mend the heart she shattered? Clayton Cooper is a bona fide daredevil. Always has been. Always will be. At first, he uses his talents for thrills and payouts on the rodeo circuit. Success seems to greet him at every turn. So when he marries his high school sweetheart, he assumes she'll follow him anywhere. But after a year and a half, she calls off the marriage and turns Clay's heart to rubble. He sees only one way to survive: lose himself in the rigors of Alaskan smokejumping. Peggy Sassman married the man she'd fallen hard for, the man whose courage and charisma promise a larger-than-life future ahead. But when Clay descends from loving husband to beer-guzzling, workaholic rodeo star, Peggy hands him divorce papers in a desperate attempt to wake him up. Instead, Clay lets her walk away. Years later, a ranch accident lands a severely hobbled Clay under Peggy's physical therapy care. Their original attraction gnaws at them until Clay cuts and runs-straight into a near-fatal head trauma that changes their lives forever. Will Peggy's unrelenting love heal Clay's body, mind, and heart? Or will the pain of their past force them apart for good? And for the rest of the Cooper Bar-6 Ranch family, one critical question remains: are Clay and Peggy's mishaps an isolated problem, or are they linked to the saboteur's goal of decimating the Cooper heritage?

Deputy sheriff Jacquelyn Lewis longs to enforce the law. Veterinarian Hunter Cooper yearns to heal the helpless. They barely begin their careers before she's fired, and he kills his first patient. If they help each other to heal, might they find their way to true happiness? Hunter Cooper was made to be a veterinarian, to heal animals of every kind, far and wide. But when his first patient dies-by his hand-his confidence shatters and his dream dies. What else can he do but go home to lick his wounds, help his brothers run the Bar-6, and ignore Crook County's urgent need for a second veterinarian. Yet no sooner does he arrive than the local vet gets seriously injured. Hunter must step up. But how? Jacquelyn Lewis trained hard to become a deputy sheriff. An unlikely candidate in a man's world, she earned her badge because she is pragmatic, intelligent, and a gifted student of human behavior. But when a routine call escalates and a bystander gets shot, her boss jumps at the chance to fire her. The only place she can go is Sundance, Wyoming, and her sheriff father, who is the only one who'll hire her. When the sheriff tasks Jackie to assist Dr. Cooper in his new role as the county veterinarian, she is angry. But soon the two find a rhythm that has nothing to do with work. As their interest in each other grows, a stampede of adversity clobbers their budding relationship. Overwhelmed by a cattle disease outbreak, the arrival of Jackie's ex-boyfriend, and a cruel new twist to the sabotage at the Bar-6, will Hunter and Jackie face the challenges together...or apart?