Bethany Campbell, Wild Horses

Bethany Campbell, Wild Horses - The letter informs Carolyn Trent that her Uncle Enoch Randolph died in his sleep. The executor Adam Duran also said in his impersonal note that he will be arriving to handle Enoch's final wishes involving the Texas properties, including the Circle T that his niece leased from him for decades. Carolyn is angry that Adam never called her to tell her Enoch died, though she and her uncle rarely communicated; his choice.

Even before she meets him, Circle T ranch secretary Mickey Nightingale dislikes Adam for his cavalier treatment of her boss who is more like a mother to her. Health problems drag Carolyn away from the ranch, leaving it to Mick to host the barracuda. However, instead of an ambulance chaser, Adam is good with the horses and kind to people. Mick is attracted to the outsider whose claim shakes the Trent family to its roots and Mick realizes if true, in some ways it makes him more an insider than she is.

WILD HORSES is more a Crystal Creek family drama than a romance as the love story between Mick and Adam comes late and in the Caribbean rather than the States where most of the plot occurred. Instead the tale centers on who Adam is and why Uncle Enoch sent him to Texas. Through Adam, and to a lesser degree Carolyn, readers learn more about the previous generation of Trent brothers who left Texas and never looked back. Bethany Campbell has written a fine entry that long-time fans of the series will want to read for its insight into Enoch and his brother Steven, Carolyn's father.

Harriet Klausner