Accidental Encounters

At twelve years old, Charlotte Cleary watched her mother bleed to death in her arms after an intruder broke into their upstate New York home. He took a worthless replica Fabergé egg from the dining-room hutch. The smell of blood, and the unanswered questions surrounding her mother’s death, would haunt Charlotte for the rest of her life.

Years later, struggling to establish herself as a journalist in New York City, Charlotte was sent to Montana by her father, a prominent Long Island veterinarian, to interview Neal Cooper, a rancher and physician. Officially, it was a professional assignment. Unofficially, her father has another motive, he wants to put thousands of miles between Charlotte and the lover he believed was wrong for her.

Montana changes everything. In the vast, untamed country of northeastern Montana, Charlotte discovers a world far removed from the life she has always known, cattle and guns, violent thunderstorms and bitter winters, blazing summers and endless skies, and nights filled with stars. Neal introduces her to the people of his small community and to the Native American heritage he holds dear.

What begins as an interview becomes an unexpected friendship. Friendship becomes desire. And desire becomes a love neither of them can easily deny. For the first time, Charlotte begins to imagine a life she never knew she wanted.

But as the pieces of her past and present begin to fall into place, the foundation of her marriage, trust, starts to crumble. The questions surrounding her mother’s death resurface, and Charlotte is forced to confront a truth she has spent most of her life avoiding.

Then, deep in the Montana wilderness, Neal is attacked by a grizzly bear. Charlotte has the skill to save him. She also has a choice. Because sometimes the most dangerous thing a woman can hold is not a gun. It is the truth she believes.