Scent of Tears

Book 1 in the Conchos and Lace Series: Charlie Horn, the orphan son of a sea captain, is given a second chance at survival when a wealthy ranch owner in Monterey, California, becomes his benefactor. Don Topo treats him like a son, and Charlie, who dreams of becoming a vaquero, loves working on the Monterey estancia.Book 1 in the Conchos and Lace Series: Charlie Horn, the orphan son of a sea captain, is given a second chance at survival when a wealthy ranch owner in Monterey, California, becomes his benefactor. Don Topo treats him like a son, and Charlie, who dreams of becoming a vaquero, loves working on the Monterey estancia. Life would be uncomplicated, except that Charlie is irrevocably in love with Lucinda, Don Topo's beautiful blue-eyed daughter—and he has been ever since he first saw her. 
The proud and vibrant Lucinda has a thirst for life and a dangerous lack of fear, but she has no interest in Charlie, except to taunt and torment him. To her he is nothing but a family servant. 
Everything changes when Lucinda's lust for life and danger leads her into the arms of Tiburcio Vasquez, an outlaw wanted for the murder of a Monterey constable. Lucinda's dalliance with the outlaw results in a pregnancy, but Don Topo refuses to allow such a scandal to sully the family name. Instead, he insists that his daughter marry Charlie, thereby forcing him into a lifelong relationship with a woman who is part nightmare and part sweet dream. Set in the ever-changing world of the Alta Sierra in the late eighteen hundreds, Scent of Tears is a story about an unlikely marriage between a young man trying to find his place in the world and a young girl whose heart belongs to a charismatic bandit.