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However, the operative words here are “less likely.” While it features a promising premise and opening chapter, Tracy Garrett’s debut, Touch Of Texas, flounders thanks to a heroine who gets off on the wrong foot, muddled conflict and uneven pacing.

Half-breed Texas Ranger, Jake McCain, is tracking the deadly William Harrison when his gang gets the jump on him. They beat him to a bloody pulp, but he is still alive – barely. With an early spring blizzard raging in the desolate west Texas countryside, Jake makes his way through the storm and passes out on Rachel Hudson’s front porch.

Rachel is the daughter of an El Paso prostitute. After her mother was murdered, she and her baby brother, Nathan, were taken in by a traveling preacher and his sickly wife. After the wife died, Rachel and Nathan part ways with the preacher and settle in Lucinda, Texas. The mining town needs a teacher, and Rachel is the most qualified person to fall in their lap.

She drags Jake into her cabin and nurses him back to health. In exchange, her reputation takes the beating of a lifetime. The wife of the town’s founder is a spiteful old hag, and despite the circumstances of his arrival, Jake spending days at the cabin of an unmarried woman is unseemly.

Problems arise immediately with the introduction of Rachel. Living out in the middle of nowhere, in an isolated cabin with her prepubescent brother, and she 1) faints at the smallest sight of blood 2) doesn’t know how to ride a horse and 3) hates guns and refuses to have one in her cabin. Where I come from we call this too stupid to live. The author does get around to explaining why Rachel is this way, but by then the first impression has been made. Frankly, it’s hard to believe that Rachel hadn’t managed to get herself raped, kidnapped or killed before Jake shows up on a her doorstep.

The conflict that propels the plot forward mainly revolves around Jake’s tracking of the outlaw gang and Rachel’s shunning by the good townspeople. Unfortunately it never carries much momentum, with the author flitting from one source of tension to the next. The conflict includes such things as an abandoned mine where Nathan discovers gold, to the Harrison gang, to Jake rescuing the gang’s young hostage, to Jake feelings he’s not good enough for Rachel, to Rachel believing her wanton feelings for Jake make her “just like” her mother, to Jake’s unfounded jealousy regarding Rachel, to the townsfolk treating Rachel like dirt, to the townsfolk treating Jake like dirt and the question of Nathan's parentage. As if this weren’t enough, there’s the lack of communication after Jake and Rachel have sex. She sure didn’t respond to his advances like a virgin – how was he supposed to know she was still “innocent?”

All of these dangling bits of conflict give the story an unfocused feel. There’s just too much crammed into the 300 pages, and even then the story feels too long at times. The entire book would have been better served had the author focused on a couple of sources of conflict, devoting page time to fleshing it out in more detail. The outlaw gang and William Harrison certainly would have been more than enough, but as is he just comes off as another one-dimensionally evil villain that smacks of convenience.

Touch Of Texas isn’t a complete washout, and the author shows promise with her writing ability. In particular, the opening chapter is well done and Jake is an interesting hero. Unfortunately, with the scattershot conflict and Rachel’s bad first impression, this debut is sometimes a slog. There’s promise though, and for now that’s enough to instill some hope in western romance fans.

You can learn more about Tracy Garrett here and purchase Touch Of Texas here and here.