I love a good western, and thought this one was destined for my keeper shelf. It starts out great and shows some wonderful potential, but then loses steam about halfway through the story when the hero and the heroine start to spend too much time apart.

Amelia O’Malley is traveling to Arizona as the representative of her family’s book business. On the way, her stagecoach is robbed – at least that’s what she and her fellow passengers think. In the ensuing pandemonioum, her bags, which contain her money and the book orders she has been entrusted to deliver, get tossed out the window. Desperate to prove herself to her father and brothers, Amelia bravely goes out to retrieve her bags and is left, literally, in the dust as the stagecoach takes off without her.

Mason Kincaid is a man embittered by life and, although he did waylay the stage, he is no criminal. When his wife committed suicide, he took to drowning his sorrow in alcohol and, in the process, ignored his young son who was then taken away by relatives. When he stops the stage, Mason’s intention is to merely ask the stage drivers if they have seen anyone matching either his son’s description or the uncles who have absconded with him. His actions are misinterpretated as a robbery by the passengers, and he is also mistaken for the infamous “Poet Bandit.” When Mason sees that Amelia has been abandoned, he gallantly returns to take her with him.

Initially, Mason and Amelia are intriguing characters who keep the story going at a nice, tension-building pace. Mason is a man cloaked in mystery and shadow. Amelia, who is frilly, naive, and, at times, obnoxious, is the perfect foil for him. Their escapades on the trail make good use of genuinely amusing, original humor which, in turn, provides a good backdrop for their ever-increasing attraction to each other.

Unfortunately, just as things are about to heat up passionately and otherwise, the story begins to falter. When Mason steps up his search for his son, he and Amelia are separated for long periods of time. The excitement and anticipation of their romance is side-tracked and the book settles into a serious case of the doldrums. Their long-awaited first love-making session, which, by the time it happens is very anti-climactic, is quite possibly among the longest and most boring on record. Would it ever end?

This book had a lot of good stuff going on in it but it broke a cardinal rule – or what should be a cardinal rule – of romance writing. The hero and the heroine need to be kept together as much as possible through thick as well as thin. That didn’t happen in this story, and, alas, an otherwise good book floundered.