THE SCOT BEDS HIS WIFE

Gavin St. James earned his wicked reputation as a womanizer. Samantha Masters stumbled into hers as an outlaw and murderer. Will fate and mistaken identity allow them to redeem one another?

Samantha didn't know she was marrying a thief when she and Bennett Masters tied the knot and she incidentally joined his gang. Robbery is one thing, but when Bennett tries to murder a woman who saw his face during a train robbery, Sam shoots him dead. The woman she saved, Alison Ross, left Scotland years ago and was raised by her mother and wealthy stepfather in San Francisco. She was on her way to be married when she encountered the Masters Gang, and she offers Sam an escape to her family's estate, Erradale, in Scotland. But the catch is that Sam must impersonate Alison. Alison has no desire to return to Scotland, but her estate has been declared abandoned and is about to be sold to Gavin, a member of the Mackenzie family, whose patriarch was responsible for her own father's death—and she's sworn never to sell to a Mackenzie. Since she was a child when she left Scotland, no one will know that Sam is an imposter. Gavin doesn't want to buy Erradale to please his father—he bears his own scars, and not just physical ones. After being tossed out a window and hearing his mother beaten so badly she was blinded, Gavin has spent his life trying not to be his father's son. Buying Erradale will allow him the means to emancipate himself from his clan. When Sam discovers that she's pregnant with her late husband's child and Erradale is attacked by Bennett Masters’ brothers, she suddenly needs Gavin as much as he needs her land. A marriage of convenience is struck between them, which allows their attraction to grow and evolve. There's a lot to love about this awesome book—a foulmouthed heroine who takes no guff, an unexpectedly gentle hero who has to handle his baggage to be with the woman he loves, a pair of gay farmhands whose banter is as charming as it is hilarious, and some seriously hot sex.

Byrne's sexy scoundrels and complex heroines deliver, as always.