Shelter Mountain

On a wet October night in Virgin River, John "Preacher" Middleton is getting ready to shut the bar when a young woman comes in with her three-year-old son. Her face and body are bruised. Preacher, a marine who has seen his share of pain, recognises trouble at once.

The woman is Paige Lassiter. Preacher wants to shelter her and the boy, and he wants to make whoever hurt her pay. Yet what he feels goes deeper than a protective instinct. Paige stirs emotions in this gentle giant that he has never let himself have.

Then Paige's ex-husband turns up in town. His arrival puts Preacher's own future at risk, and the marine's code of Semper Fidelis (always faithful) pushes him toward a fight he believes is worth having.

This is a contemporary romance set in a small town, and Paige is the second woman in a year to arrive in Virgin River running from her past. The mood is warm and protective, with a threat of violence hanging over a slowly deepening bond between a wary man and a mother with a young child.