title: Mail Order Melody
author: Woolf, Cynthia
description: Adam  Talbot  has  his  life  planned  out,  and  that  plan  does  not  include  a  wife.  So  why  does  one  woman  occupy  his  mind  night  and  day?  He  is  being  trusted  to  deliver  a  group  of  mail-order  brides  from  Massachusetts  all  the  way  to  the  Washington  Territory.  Karen  is  one  of  them.  She's  beautiful,  smart  and  has  two  young  children  that  should  scare  Adam  off  faster  than  an  angry  rattlesnake.
  He  was  burned  at  the  alter,  left  standing  with  his  heart  broken  and  the  whole  world  laughing  when  his  fiancee  eloped  with  his  best  friend.  A  woman  is  more  trouble  than  he  needs.  But  he's  the  moth  and  she's  the  flame.  He  knows  he's  going  to  get  burned.  But  allowing  her  to  marry  another  is  out  of  the  question.  And  when  a  deranged  woman  from  Karen's  past  threatens  the  soft-hearted  woman  he  can't  help  but  fall  in  love  with--and  her  two  precious  little  ones--Adam  discovers  that  walking  through  fire  doesn't  burn  anymore,  not  if  it  gets  him  what  he  really  needs...his  own  family.