Professional rodeo team roper, Karlie Upton, is done with arrogant testosterone-soaked cowboys, and she's done with the rodeo. Worn out from traveling and battling with the abusive bull rider she'd just broken up with, Karlie heads for Bowie, Texas to see if her old friend Cassie Bellamy needs help with her new horse operation. Her identical twin sister, and roping partner isn't happy about Karlie leaving her high and dry, but Karlie can't stay, and she can't tell her sister why she's leaving.Karlie knows her ex will probably come looking for her, because not only did she leave, she took his meal ticket with her, a fifty-pound slack-jawed bulldog named Sarge, who he got five-thousand dollars a month to care for from his crazy grandpa's estate. When she reaches the city limits of Bowie, Karlie receives a welcome she didn't expect. Not paying attention to her speed, Karlie had let 'Freddie', the hot rod Lincoln she'd had since she was sixteen, have his head, and he didn't like to go slow. He liked to blow the stripes off of the road, since she'd souped him up in automotive class in high school. So, the first person she met in Bowie, wasn't the one she went there to see, but he was easy on the eyes nonetheless. The handsome deputy gave her a lecture and a ticket that would empty her pocketbook. Then after she tried to bargain her way out of the ticket, he arrested her and threatened to send Sarge to the pound! Karlie knew she would have enjoyed the frisking, but when the hot lawman took her dog into custody, he crossed the line, and Karlie showed him she wasn't known as the 'Wild Child' in the pro rodeo circuit for nothing!Her impulsive nature yet again lands her in a heap of trouble, but it also gives her a reason to see the good looking lawman again, when she cuts a community service deal to fix his police car. Karlie's not looking for a relationship with any man, her ex may have soured her for life on those, but she sure could go for a little romp in the hayloft with the tall, dark and handsome deputy sheriff. But then she finds out he has issues, deep dark issues, which meant he was a 'fixer-upper'. Karlie knew she was in trouble then, because if there was one thing she had a problem avoiding, it was projects. From cars to men, the more they needed fixing, the more they interested her.Bowie's Chief Deputy, Gabe Kelley, had never encountered a woman like the red hot redhead he stopped for speeding, while filling in for his patrolman on traffic duty. Sitting at the city limit sign, minding his own business, almost dozing off, because he was so bored, Gabe was jolted out of his lethargy when a black Lincoln went past him doing at least one ten.When he finally caught up to the sassy redhead, she gave him lip, then he gave her a hefty ticket, and a stern warning about driving through his town recklessly. He never expected the beautiful cowgirl to proposition him to get out of the ticket! He was so shocked, he arrested her, then called the dog pound to come get her ugly dog. The next thing Gabe knew, he was laying on his stomach on the hot Texas roadway, hogtied, and mad as hell, watching the hotheaded woman drive off leaving him there. He was going to get untied, and when he did, there would be hell to pay, and the one paying it would be Miss Karlie Upton. It might take him a while to find her, but he would, if it was the last thing he ever did. One way or another, Gabe was going to teach the bratty woman he wasn't a man to be messed with...if it took spanking her shapely ass to drive that point home. Gabe would have to be careful though, because, although he liked his women with a little edge, he knew this beautiful redhead had enough of it to cut his throat. Her ex is after her, and the only thing standing between the rough bull rider and her is Gabe, and this guy is playing for keeps, but then so is Gabe.