Sheriff Kade Wilcox, observing train passengers, is unprepared for Mattie throwing her arms around his neck and her soft lips settling on his. He doesn't know her and doesn't intend to encourage her in it. Yet, he isn't of a mind to discourage her, finding her a real temptation the way she can kiss a man's socks off. In a dangerous job, not caring whether he lives or dies after the loss of his wife and baby in childbirth, he is loath to get involved again in a high stakes relationship and maybe lose everything a second time. However, Mattie, like a sudden rain on the desert floor, revives things he'd thought long dead. Is woman fever enough to put his marital past behind, care whether he lives or dies, and remarry? And can he breach Mattie's newfound freedom, love of travel, and distrust of men and marriage, when his job can leave her abandoned, albeit in a different way, like her father?