The Reprobate — Dorothy A. Bell

Royce O'Bannon plays the fiddle as a man possessed. Unlike his brother Quinn, Royce takes after his whisky-sodden, vengeful old man, Stanley O'Bannon, and defiantly admits to being a reprobate, irredeemable in the eyes of good society, a lost cause bound to hang and burn in hell. He also figures God hadn't made the woman who could tame the beast that lurked deep down in his worthless Irish soul. No woman should have anything to do with him. Then one frosty night, at a town social, he sees her, the crippled goddess, Cleantha Arnaud, the schoolmaster's daughter, a wounded bird, beautiful, fragile and way above his touch. With Cleantha accompanying him on the piano, keeping up with his unrelenting pace, they play jig after jig, waltz after waltz, schottische after schottische. Cleantha intrigues him as no other woman before, and if he reads the gleam in her river-green eyes correctly, the feeling is mutual. Even a reprobate like Royce O'Bannon suffers from a twinge of conscience from time to time, and although he despises himself for it, he can't take advantage. But Cleantha, driven by her own needs and desires, puts forth a challenge no reprobate could refuse. In Cleantha, Royce gets a glimpse of what could be. He begins to think he too could have a wife, a real home, love and security, a life he assumed unattainable, beyond his reach. For a few fleeting moments, he believes the dream could become a reality. But can he do what has to be done to win the woman of his dreams? This is the first in the Laura Creek series, but it can standalone.