After her parents die and a cholera epidemic wracks the colony, Temperance feels called by God to take the surviving orphaned children back East to their extended families. But the only man available to accompany her on the dangerous journey over the Oregon Trail is Thaddeus Brennan, a hard-edged drifter with good reasons of his own to get out of town. Despite the mismatch of Temperances purity with Thads hot temper, heavy drinking, and distaste for...

In the turbulent mid-1800s, Charity Morgan is a beautiful, businesslike young woman whose devout religious community is losing its Pennsylvania homestead to the economic recession. To survive and stay together, she and the other members make plans to form a wagon train to Oregon, where free land is plentiful. There's just one catch. No wagon master is better equipped to lead them safely west than inmate Casey Tremayne and his ragtag band of felons....