One Lonely Night just missed being a Desert Island Keeper for me. Both the hero and heroine went through a little too much angst for me, but this is a good read by a talented author, and I enthusiastically recommend you give it a try. I’ll be on the lookout for more of Ms. Law’s work, and that’s for sure.

It’s 1884, and life has virtually passed Margaret Thayer by. Saddled with an alcoholic father and a sick mother, no man wanted to take Margaret to wife (along with all her family’s problems) so, at 35, Margaret remains a virginal spinster. Self-sufficient, but dirt poor, Margaret does the best she can – she has her knitting, and her pride, and ekes out a living on the small farm she has inherited just outside the town of Redemption in the Dakota Territories.

Tall, rugged, handsome Kieran McDermott is a bounty hunter – of sorts. More accurately, he’s a 19^th Century Western version of “The Equalizer.” He rights the wrongs done to nice folks, and receives payment in whatever amount the people he’s helped deem appropriate (or can afford). Kieran is a nice man and a wonderful hero, and is oh-so easy to fall in love with.

While Kieran is tracking an embezzler (known as The Uncatchable Man) who has also kidnapped an innocent 15-year-old girl, he’s caught in a blinding snowstorm just outside of Redemption and arrives nearly frozen at Margaret Thayer’s door. Margaret takes the stranger in, but Kieran refuses any kind of help – until after his rescuer has taken care of his horse. (Are you falling yet?)

Margaret is completely unused to being around men, so she doesn’t know what to do with Kieran. She saves his life, and he in turn teaches her how to play poker. After a couple of days, Kieran is well enough to move on, but Margaret wants something from Kieran she never thought she’d ever get in her whole long, lonely life. The attraction between Margaret and Kieran has been there since the moment they met, but neither thought anything would come of it. As Kieran prepares to leave – for good – Margaret tells Kieran she wants him to make love to her. What follows is a very tender, very sweet, sexy and even funny night of lovemaking that binds the two together in ways neither had anticipated.

Turns out, the bad guy is somewhere in Redemption, in disguise, so Kieran has cause to hang around just a little bit longer. I confess, Ms. Law has factored in enough characters and left certain passages ambiguous enough that, even though I had my suspicions, I was never quite sure who The Uncatchable Man, nor his “kidnap” victim really were until they were revealed. Nice job!

Well, one thing leads to another, and Kieran decides he must elicit Margaret’s help if he has any chance of capturing his prey. While they are busy ferreting out the truth, they are falling more deeply in love. The culmination of the story is fresh, satisfying, and believable. Secondary characters are nicely drawn and nobody in this story is stereotypical. Margaret’s feisty best friend (who has lots of children because she and her husband can’t keep their hands off each other), is a real treat.

When I read the back cover of this book, although intrigued, I put off reading it for quite a while. The thought of a mature, lonely woman being so desperate for love she begs a stranger for a night of sex, knowing he will leave in the morning, brought out all my fear of abandonment issues and I thought the book would be too heartbreaking to get through. Well, I was wrong. Ms. Law has created a very believable heroine in Margaret, who turns out to be surprisingly strong, quick-witted, adventurous, brave, and Kieran’s match in every way. Yes, there was a little to much angst in the characters’ self-talk, and Keiran’s twenty-year odyssey of guilt and remorse was a bit unrealistic, but these are minor trade-offs for the sexy and sweet story of Kieran and Margaret and how they found their well-deserved happy-ever-after.