Cletus asked for Lana when she was barely more than a child. He told her grandmother he wanted a wife, not a bride, someone to keep his house the way he wanted it and to give him sons. He got more daughters than sons, and he also got James: “That boy,” the one Cletus claimed wasn’t his. Jim Dillon wanted Lana — he always had. He just hadn’t expected her to be taken away and married to someone else so soon. Glen Morgan recognized the beauty underlying Lana’s worn features, and he stepped in where Cletus hadn’t, offering help to her and her children. Lana grew up under Cletus’ demands, fulfilling what was expected of her — until his accusations that she’d done the unexpected and been unfaithful. Lana no longer looked at what might have been or what could be. She discovered what was most important, and she found it inside of herself.

Neither Rex nor Regina wants a spouse, but they do have needs. Ranger Rex Duncan needs a false identity—just long enough to uncover a ring of Kansas ranch thieves. Answering Regina’s ad for a temporary husband, he leaves his beloved red dirt of Oklahoma to assume that disguise. But the most obstinate woman he’s ever known confounds his assignment, and with hair the red color that has always made his heart beat a little faster. Regina Howard needs a new Mrs. in front of her name—just long enough to reclaim her deceased husband’s ranch, since Kansas law won’t allow women to own property. When Rex answers her ad for a husband who can take orders as part of a brief business arrangement, she finds this stubborn man ignores her every command. Yet a good man is far more than just a name…

Cate is a runner. She prefers to help her fiancé run his New York senate race, but she finds herself running instead to fix what's broken between her grandparents before he finds out—her grandmother has moved out of the family home, and her grandfather is accused of a pre-WWII relationship with a woman in Germany. Dietrich is a German journalist with a spotless reputation. He prefers facts, but he finds himself lost in a world of fiction instead to prove his novelist grandmother couldn't possibly have been the lover of a US runner in Berlin's 1936 Olympics—especially when that runner's granddaughter is Cate, a stubborn obstacle he should but can't ignore. Cate runs hard to cover up what Dietrich uncovers, until he shows her how it could have been—and how it could be again—that one can indeed love an enemy.