From Romantic Times...

Marsha Canham's gift for bringing readers straight to the Scottish battlefields, a storm-tossed sea and the dark green of an English forest now transports readers to the New Mexico desert for an unforgettable Western romance written with Ms. Canham's distinctive style.

Masquerading as a prim schoolteacher, Aubrey Blue is on her way to Sante Fe when her stage is attacked. With her sharpshooter's skill, she joins fellow passenger Christian McBride and his traveling companion, Ute warrior Sun Shadow, to fight off the enemy. Stranded in the desert with a bedraggled group of travelers, Aubrey is resolved to survive, just to get her revenge on the man who ruined her life.

Like Aubrey, McBride is on a quest for vengeance. After five years in prison, he is bent on clearing his name and forcing Maxwell Fleming to pay for his crimes. But out in the desert, with the Comanche hot on their heels, McBride is planning on how to reach civilization and seduce the intriguing schoolmarm.

Though Aubrey knows McBride is dangerous, she succumbs to his skillful, gentle, sensual demands, but once they are safe she refuses his marriage proposal in her single minded determination to see Fleming fall. With her gambler's skill, her remarkable beauty and her drive to see justice done, Aubrey finds work in Fleming's saloon, but it isn't until she and McBride join forces that they discover they are both after the same prize. In a shoot-out reminiscent of the greatest of all Western movies, Aubrey and McBride finally reach their goal, yet there is still one more hurdle to overcome.

Under The Desert Moon is the 'Silverado' of Western romances. Marsha Canham has incorporated every wonderful scene from every memorable Western into one extraordinary novel. With the vivid prose, vibrant descriptions, a delightful cast of characters (including Billy the Kid), fast-paced action and a strong story (to say nothing of the wonderful romance), readers will be spellbound. Ms Canham demonstrates the rare ability to breathe life into characters and situations in every historical era and setting Yippee!"
Kathe Robin

She thought he was dead. There was nothing to indicate any life in the half naked body that was being gently nudged to and fro in the shallow water of the tidal pool. The cuts and scrapes that marred the broad slabs of muscle across his back and shoulders were a bloodless raw pink, the skin itself was waxy, yellowed as old tallow. He was dressed only in thin linen under drawers which ended at the knee and were secured about the waist with a slackened drawstring. He might as well have been completely naked, however, for the linen had been rendered nearly transparent by the water and though her eyes did not linger there overlong, she could plainly see the sculpted curves of his buttocks, the shallow dimples in the small of his back.

Just as a chilling shudder of revulsion spasmed through her body, the surf swirled forward, clattering across the sand and shingle to surround the still form. The blue-gray lips opened with the fresh incursion of salt water and it was there, in the expelled rush that she detected the presence of sporadic bubbles.

Annaleah Fairchilde jumped quickly back, her hands flying to the base of her throat. Her gaze darted around the jumbled rocks on either side of the still body as if she half expected to see a dozen more corpses scattered among the boulders, but the beach was deserted as always. A treacherous fog had blanketted the coastline through the night; the last of it was just burning off in the early morning sun. She had not heard any alarms to signify a ship blown off course, nor any church bells tolling to call out the villagers, yet the body must have come off a ship. During the past two decades of hostilities with France, Torbay had become an important seaport. Moreover, the great harbor of Plymouth was less than forty nautical miles to the east.

She looked down again. Thick, wet strands of dark hair lay across his face, obscuring most of his features from view, and she could see that his eyes were closed, the long black lashes spiked against his cheeks. But he must be a sailor. His upper torso was broad and well-defined with muscle, his thighs lean and hard as those belonging to the men she had seen climbing nimbly up the tall masts of sailing ships. The one hand that lay palm up in the sand was square, the pads of his fingers white with callouses; the other was clenched in a fist, the attached arm folded under his head. It was this meager bit of leverage that had probably saved him from drowning.

If it had saved him.

Annaleah glanced this way and that over her shoulder, the panic rising in her chest again, this time because she was alone on the beach. It was one of the reasons she rose so early in the morning. The cove was small and isolated, the beach less than a half mile in length and curved around water that was too shallow for anchorage, too turbulent beyond the breakers for fishermen to set their nets. The inlet itself was ringed by steep limestone cliffs, the cracks and crags populated by colonies of screaming gulls, most of which were in the air now, circling in white flashes above as if they too were waiting to see if this tempting morsal of fleshy driftwood would live or die.

Widdicombe House sat at the top of the cliffs, accessed by a steep path that had been worn into the face of the rock by a few thousand years of high winds and blowing sands. It was not a conceivable thought, even if Annaleah had been a man, that she could manipulate the dead weight of a body to the top on her own. She would have to go back for help, although she strongly doubted, in the time it would take her to reach the house and tell them what she had discovered, that the sailor would still be here.

The tide was inching higher up the shingle even as she took another step back to avoid staining her shoes with salt water. Further out, beyond the jagged breakers, the surface of the sea was a calm, undulating sheet of liquid pewter beneath the hazed sky. As soon as the sun burned through the last of the mist, it would turn hot and airless, a day just like so many had been this past week.

Knowing she had to make some kind of a decision, Annaleah wiped her hands on the folds of her muslin skirt and ventured close to the body again. She jumped as the icy water of the Channel scrabbled over her slippers, but there was nothing to be done for it. The hem of her dress was dragged backward and, as uncharitable a thought as it might be, she felt a momentary surge of resentment for the unmoving body.

"Some time away with your Great Aunt Florence will do you good," she muttered to herself, misquoting her mother's words of a week ago. "The sheer calmness and boredom of the seaside should help sedate your own thoughts."

Bracing herself, she reached down and gingerly curved her hands beneath the man's shoulders, testing his weight. She was not a frail wisp of a thing by any measure, but he seemed gigantic in proportion and utterly limp. It took her three grunted attempts and a near spill head-first into the encroaching waves before she discarded the notion of dragging him out of the sand. By then her feet were slippery and squeeking inside her soaked shoes, and a good half length of her skirt was already ruined by seawater.

"Damnation, hell, and bother!" she said, citing her brother's favorite oath.

With one eye on the next wave scrolling over the breakers, she slogged around beside the body and tried pushing him, rolling him front over side over back until he was a few feet higher on the shore.

She stopped, her hands braced on her knees, to catch her breath, and noticed for the first time the ugly, blotched egg at the back of his skull. The skin was swollen almost to bursting, mottled blue and black, riddled with spidery red veins. It must have taken quite a blow to affect such a lump and Annaleah, feeling even more helpless than before, knealt gingerly beside him. Her hands hovered over the contusion several more seconds before she found enough nerve to lift the tangled mass of wet black hair off his neck. Assured the skin was not broken and his brain was not leaking out, she took a further moment to study his profile, but was no further enlightened. She did not recognize him, though that was hardly a surprise. In all of her nineteen years, she had visited Widdicombe House perhaps ten times, none of them made with the intentions of retaining any memories of the local fishermen and farmers who gawked openly at the well heeled visitors from London.

It was Annaleah who gawked now, however. She had deliberately avoided acknowledging his state of near nudity and tried not to think of where her hands were placed each time she grasped his hip and shoulder to roll him. But now her gaze had wandered far below where any sense of modesty should have allowed. He was on his side facing her, and while his whole body had become sugared with a fine coating of sand, the linen of his drawers clung in a shockingly sheer layer to his lower anatomy. Her eyes, bluer than the sky above, widened and glazed appreciably at the shapes and contours molded by the wet cloth. She had heard whispers of such things, even seen a crude sketch drawn once in a parlor full of giggling females, but to actually see such a thing, to realize what an awkward burden a man carried between his legs...well, it was no wonder they often looked discomfortted--sometimes even in pain.

A slap of cold water against the soles of her feet served to break the spell and, with her skin still hot and her breath dry in her throat, she pushed and rolled and heaved again until he was lying in the soft, powdery sand, well above the scalloped lines of dried seaweed that indicated the highest reach of the tidewater. With the final shove, her hands skidded forward onto his chest and she fell forward, sprawling half across his body.

It had the same effect as falling over a rock and the air left her lungs with a loud whoomf. Conversely it left his in a small fount of seawater, followed by a shallow gasp and much larger rush as his body began to reject the notion of drowning. Annaleah instinctively grabbed his jaw and turned his head as the first mouthful of foul liquid fell right back into his throat, then held him while he wretched and spewed salt water through his mouth and nose. His eyes remained closed and his body clenched around each spasm, but eventually the effort drained him and he collapsed limp on the sand.

Able to draw unimpeded breaths again, a faint hint of color began to seep back into his skin. His lips remained blue, but the dreadful yellow cast began to fade, revealing the true shading of his bronzed skin. The sand had caked over his much of his face and as Annaleah reached over to brush some of it off his eyes, the long lashes shivered and opened a slit. For the briefest of moments Annaleah found herself staring into eyes so dark they looked like holes burned into the center of his head. For those same few seconds she held her breath, for there was so much anger and pain in their depths, she almost missed hearing the harsh croak of words that were forced through his lips.

"They have to know the truth."

"Wh-what? What did you say?"

A hand, with fingers like iron bands and a grip that threatened to snap the fine bones in her wrist, reached up and grabbed her. "They have to know the truth. Before it is too late."

"I...do not know what you mean, sir," she stammered, shocked by the strength of his hand, shocked by the power of his eyes boring into hers. "What truth, sir? Who has to know?"