Shadows by Starlight — Linda Hilton

He thought she was a child. She thought he was married. Then they discovered the truth. When a traveling medicine show rolls off the Kansas prairie and into the little town of Coker's Grove on a beautiful spring evening in 1877, Marshal Sloan McDonough anticipates mischief. But he never expects to nab a scruffy urchin picking pockets during the performance. While Norton Van Sky performs tricks and hawks "Dr. Mercurio's Miraculous Elixir" from his painted wagon, his granddaughter Nerida mingles with the crowd to supplement the profits. She hates doing it, but her nimble fingers are the only thing standing between her and starvation. Caught red-handed, she is resigned to her fate until the quiet-spoken marshal surprises her by seeing through the most obvious of her deceptions. Sloan has his own history of lies, almost forgotten as he's built a reputation as a fair and honest lawman. With Coker's Grove a dangerous tinderbox of greed and small town politics, the last thing he needs is the spark of passion that threatens to destroy much more than his peaceful existence. Neither Nerida nor Sloan can deny the desire that flares into glorious flame in spite of all their attempts to ignore it. Can they face the painful truths from the past and confront very real dangers in the present, to reach for future as magical as…shadows by starlight?Originally published as Starlight Seduction, Zebra Books, 1993.