Mary: Part One (Brides of the Rio Grande #5)

Mary O'Brien was barely ten years old when a small band of renegade Indians overtook her family’s wagon and murdered her parents and her older brother. She wished she had died with them, but she had not been so lucky. For the next four years, she did her best to survive.

One day, a band of Southern Utes saw her and made an offer for her, but instead of making her their slave, they made her a part of their family. For the next fifteen years, she lived in peace with her adopted family—until the day the U.S. Army rode into camp and insisted she is returned to the white man’s world.

Doc Howard has had his share of heartaches—and secrets. When his mother had died, his father took him far away from the mountains where he had lived as a boy. But when his father died too, Doc wanted to return to his mother’s people and their simple way of life.

No one knew his secret and he was certain he could walk the thin line between his father’s world and his mother’s without having to choose one over the other. But when a troubled woman full of contradictions returns from the dead, he soon realizes that if he doesn’t take a stand through his own convictions, the consequences could be catastrophic and he would only have himself to blame.