<p><strong>Finalist in the Daphne De Maurier mystery and The Maggie writing contests.</strong></p><p></p><p class="ql-align-justify">When wealthy Chicagoan Nicholas Shield set off to find his missing sister, he never expected to come face to face with his infamous past, let alone his own mortality. Six weeks ago, his beloved sister vanished without a word. The Pinkerton agent his father hired picked up her trail in the Colorado mountains only to abandon the search when the altitude made him sick. &nbsp;Now it was up to Nick to find her and bring her home.</p><p class="ql-align-justify"><br></p><p class="ql-align-justify">Armed with the name of a local investigator to guide him and a chess piece he was ordered to present, Nick started his search in a hell hole of a town called Colorado City where drinking and gambling and whoring were the mainstays of life. And where Lee Wilcox, the man he expected to hire, turned out to be Lilly Kane, the woman who had left him seven years before and for whom he still pined.</p><p class="ql-align-justify">&nbsp;</p><p class="ql-align-justify">The last man Lilly Kane expected to see in the wildest of the West was Nicholas Shield, the fun-loving, irreverent hedonist who had fathered her child. The man she once loved, the man she now hated. Because of him she had remade her life not once, but twice, and no one was going to upset her world ever again. Or so she thought... until he reentered her life, all virile masculinity, apologetic, and desperate to find his sister. Deep down she knew she was the only one who could help him. As a secret government agent hunting sex slavers, she knew more than anyone how innocent women could be unwittingly manipulated by unscrupulous flesh peddlers into working the gold camps, and she feared his sister might have fallen victim to this sad fate. Joining forces, they pledged a truce, each hoping to fulfill their mission without igniting the glowing embers still burning between them.</p><p class="ql-align-justify"><br></p><p class="ql-align-justify">As they pick up the trail high in the mountains, one thing soon becomes painfully clear. While they hunt for Nick's sister, someone is hunting Lilly. And anyone standing in the way is considered collateral damage. Including Nick.</p><p class="ql-align-justify"><br></p><p class="ql-align-justify">Heat Level: Steamy</p><p><br></p><p>Memories and Moonbeams is a standalone love story in The Chessmen series--steamy, emotional stories of strong late Victorian heroines and the men who love them.</p>