The Engagement
Kate Bridges
Harlequin, May 2004
ISBN: 0373293046

In 1891 Alberta, Dr. Virginia Waters waits for her fianc Mounties marksman Zack "Bulls-eye" Bullock to come home. The couple has not seen one another in years, but he felt obligated to offer marriage when his brother, engaged to Virginia for six years, married someone else. When the train arrives in town, an explosion occurs. Two Mounties are killed and Zack is wounded as someone shot him during the chaos.

As Zack heals, he realizes that his fianc e is a target of an enemy James Stiller, whose brother he killed. To keep Virginia safe, Zack publicly breaks their engagement though that breaks his heart to do so. However his actions fail as someone tries to shoot Virginia. Admitting the truth to her, she tells him that once Stiller is stopped she never wants to see either of the Bullock brothers again. Zack plans to change her mind with three kisses as the Mounties always get, in this case, their woman, but first must keep her safe from Stiller.

Virginia makes the tale as she is intrepid and feisty as expected of a female medical practitioner in the late nineteenth century. The action never slows down from the moment the dynamite strikes the train until the final confrontation between the villain and his cohorts vs. Zack and his supporters. Fans of historical romantic suspense will appreciate this warm bridge back to Calgary during a bygone era and will want to read the author's first Canadian tale THE SURGEON.

Harriet Klausner