When gunshots echoed outside the courthouse in Las Cruces, New Mexico, Miles Long took off in a blind rage of protection. Two men were dead and Miles and his family were the ones in handcuffs. Quiet and reserved, the bookworm cowboy has to keep from being locked up and save the ranch, his family worked for over a century. Ashleigh Wood had one job, help Hamilton Boyle convict three members of the Long family for murder. Being against her best friend’s new family and tasked with researching the history of the Longs, she soon discovers she’s falling in love the man whose bullet matches the fatal shot. Can Ashleigh set aside the desire drawing her to a man she knows is capable of murder? Will justice finally come to the Longs of Tender Root, or will the final straw destroy what their family has struggled to build?