Rafe Sutton has just learned that his one night stand with the woman who had a childhood crush on him has resulted in a pregnancy (condom must've failed) and that she's being pursued by a dangerous stalker. Rhianna McCloud is 8 and a 1/2 months pregnant when the book begins. And although she feels bad about hiding her pregancy from Rafe, she was going to tell him when the baby was born and just wanted to see if he would come back to her for her... because she's loved him since she was 16. Rhianna's father calls Rafe and asks his help in protecting her so Rafe goes after her in Denver (where he discovers she's preg) and convinces her to live with him on the Sutton ranch...
Only on the way to the ranch Rhianna gets kidnapped from the washroom and a gigantic ransom demand is made. In order to raise the money Rafe's father Senator Sutton mortgages the ranch to his friend Judge Stewart (misspelled from previous books as Stuart) and they deliver the money just in time to learn Rhianna's location before she gives birth (cuz she went into labor when she was kidnapped). But all this reveals Judge Stewart may not be a friend of the family after all and he's threatening to foreclose at the smallest sign of nonpayment while all sorts of incidents happen to stop the family from raising the money to pay off the loan! Meanwhile Rafe realizes the reason he was so reluctant to marry Rhianna is because he was afraid it would get her killed -- but is it too late? Will she marry another man to get the money to pay off the ranch?
Although I didn't have as many problems with this book as for the previous ones in this series, it's definitely not my favorite book ever. I didn't see why they paid the ransom instead of calling in the local authorities or lauching a helicopter search or anything...And the whole Judge Stewart thing was pretty obvious from book 1 of this series so the intrigue wasn't really there for me. Oh well. Better than the other two though!
