Lila scrubs floors in a muddy saloon and keeps her head down. A plus-size African American woman living under a false name, she's built her survival around invisibility. Every shadow feels like a threat. Every stranger's glance carries the weight of a potential sentence.
Kane is a ruthless bounty hunter, former Confederate soldier, cold and scarred and ruled by a code that has nothing to do with kindness. When drunken men corner her, he intervenes, not out of mercy but calculation. He sees the fear in her eyes and knows there's a paper somewhere with her description on it.
When lawmen ride into town asking pointed questions, a pragmatic alliance takes shape. Protection in exchange for information. Neither of them trusts the other. Both expect betrayal. Fleeing into the frontier night with the past closing in behind them, mutual suspicion combusts into something rawer and harder to manage: desire that neither of them knows what to do with and neither can shut down.
Lila's hidden steel surfaces when she's cornered. Kane's carefully constructed walls develop cracks under the pressure of her vulnerability, and under something he wasn't built to account for. Then a ghost from her past arrives and forces the sharpest choice he's ever had to make: abandon her to protect himself, or risk everything to keep her safe.
Dust, blood, and no room for mistakes in this territory.
Will the hunter's redemption cost him the only thing that finally feels like home?
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Step into the first unforgettable story of the series, where a destitute fugitive and a ruthless bounty hunter collide in Bound by Blood.
Set against the brutal, lawless backdrop of the 19th-century American West, Dust & Destiny: Tales of the Frontier follows resilient heroines scraping by in poverty, yet armed with sharp wits, fierce survival instincts, and unforgettable spirit. Paired with rugged heroes across unique frontier occupations, each standalone story delivers high-heat emotional tension, dual perspectives, and steamy passion. Amidst dust, blood, and a rapidly changing land, these remarkable women fight past their hardships to claim redemption, belonging, and hard-won love.