Texas Bride

A Bitter Creek Novel #9 & Mail Order Brides Novel #1

by Joan Johnston

Dell

Historical Romance, Historical Romance: Old West

March 27, 2012

ISBN-10: 0345527445

ISBN-13: 9780345527448

Available in: Paperback

Read an Excerpt

Texas Bride
by Joan Johnston

HE MAY BE HER ONLY HOPE.
SHE MAY BE HIS LAST CHANCE.

Miranda Wentworth never imagined becoming a mail-order bride. Now marriage to a stranger is her only hope of finding a home where she and her two younger brothers can escape the brutality of the Chicago orphanage where they live. With any luck, she can even start a family of her own, once the three of them are settled at Jacob Creed’s Texas ranch. But Miranda has one gigantic concern: Her husband-to-be knows nothing about the brothers she’s bringing along. What if he calls off the deal when he discovers the trick she’s played on him?

Jake Creed is hanging on to his Texas ranch by his fingernails. His nemesis, Alexander Blackthorne, is determined to ruin him. Jake will never give up, but he’s in desperate trouble. His wife died six months ago in childbirth, along with their stillborn son, and his two-year-old daughter needs a mother. The advertisement Jake wrote never mentioned his daughter—or the fact that he has no intention of consummating his marriage. He’s determined never to subject another wife to the burden of pregnancy. But Jake doesn’t count on finding his bride so desirable. He doesn’t count on aching with need when she joins him in bed. And he never suspected his bride would have plans of her own to seduce him.

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Joan Johnston's Bio

One of the most popular romance writers in America today, former attorney and college professor Joan Johnston has over 10 million books in print world-wide — including the New York Times bestsellers SISTERS FOUND, THE COWBOY, THE TEXAN, THE LONER, THE NEXT MRS. BLACKTHORNE and NO LONGER A STRANGER..
THE PRICE represented a milestone in Johnston’s career as her first hardcover original.

Joan Johnston has an eclectic background. Now the bestselling, award-winning author of forty-five novels, she was formerly an attorney with Hunton & Williams in Richmond, Virginia and Squire, Sanders & Dempsey in Miami, Florida. Joan also worked as a newspaper editor and drama critic in San Antonio, Texas, as a director of theatre in Southwest Texas, and as a college professor, most recently at the University of Miami, Florida. Joan has a B.A. in theatre arts from Jacksonville University in Jacksonville, Florida, an M.A. in theatre from the University of Illinois in Urbana and received her J.D. with honors from the University of Texas at Austin School of Law.

Joan loves to travel and visited England and Scotland to do research for her Captive Hearts series (Captive, After the Kiss, The Bodyguard and The Bridegroom). She also made journeys to Tahiti, Australia and Bali–for a South Seas, WWII novel that she hopes to write. Joan’s books have appeared on the New York Times, USA TODAY and Publishers Weekly Bestseller Lists.

For her Bitter Creek series, Joan toured the legendary King Ranch in South Texas and took a course on tracking (humans and animals!) from a Deputy Marshal deep in the Big Bend country of West Texas. She also traveled to Australia to tour the big cattle stations there and see what life is like Down Under.

Joan is a member of the Authors Guild, Novelists, Inc., Romance Writers of America and Florida Romance Writers. She divides her time between homes in Colorado and South Florida.

Johnston recently became a grandmother for the second time. Her daughter, a teacher, lives in the Tampa area. Her son, a budding novelist, lives in Orlando.