Harper’s Bride by Alexis Harrington

With blistering humiliation, Melissa Logan stood by in mute horror as her husband sold her to pay a debt. She’d already realized that marrying Coy Logan to escape her miserable life with a drunken father and two lazy brothers had been a ghastly mistake. Coy dragged her to Dawson City to join the Yukon gold rush. Now worse off than ever, she was penniless with a new baby and “belonged” to Dylan Harper, a man said to have a heart of stone and a meat cleaver under his store counter that he wielded without hesitation. Melissa never felt so desperate in her life.

Dylan Harper wanted his $1,200, not a wife. But afraid if he didn’t accept Logan’s offer, someone else would, Dylan couldn’t bear the idea of this woman with a bruised face suffering an even worse fate. To him, this marriage, conducted in a barroom with a dying Louisiana lawyer officiating, was nothing more than a business arrangement. Melissa would cook and clean for him, but not share his bed. But he didn’t dream this gentle female would grip his heart so fiercely. Yet, with all the hurt between them, would either be willing to take the first steps to trust again, to touch, to fall in love—