Chained at Sundown

The law put Jude Calder in Gideon Shaw’s chains. Falling in love could hang them both.

Arizona Territory, 1888.

Deputy U. S. Marshal Gideon Shaw has one assignment: collect accused murderer Jude Calder and deliver him to the federal courthouse in Santa Reina.

But Jude is nothing like the vicious killer described in the warrant.

Brutally beaten and expecting another attempt on his life, Jude claims he was framed after his brother uncovered a powerful cattle baron’s empire of stolen land, murdered homesteaders, and corrupt lawmen. He surrendered only because Gideon is the one marshal rumored to be impossible to buy.

Then an ambush leaves them stranded seventy miles from help.

With one wounded horse, almost no water, and a chain connecting their wrists, survival forces the guarded marshal and sharp-tongued outlaw into relentless proximity. They fight as one body, sleep beneath the same blanket, tend each other’s wounds, and learn every scar the other man tries to hide.

Suspicion becomes trust.

Trust becomes hunger.

And every touch makes Gideon’s badge feel heavier.

Gideon has spent years believing that loving another man can only place him in danger.

Jude has spent just as long believing that surrender means surrendering his freedom.

But when the conspiracy reaches into the federal marshal service, Gideon must decide whether justice means obeying the law—or betraying it for the innocent man he was ordered to condemn.

To clear Jude’s name, they must survive the desert, expose a trail of blood stretching from stolen ranches to a buried silver mine, and return to Santa Reina before an execution staged at sundown.

Because the most dangerous choice Gideon will ever make is not freeing Jude from his chains.

It is asking him to stay after the chains are gone.

Chained at Sundown is a steamy, emotionally intense gay Western romance filled with forbidden desire, forced proximity, one horse, one bed, hard-won consent, outlaw justice, aching vulnerability, and two wounded men fighting for the freedom to love each other openly.