USA Today bestseller and award-winning novelist Rosanne Bittner is known as the “Queen of Western Historical Romance” for her thrilling love stories and historical authenticity. Her epic romances span the West—and are often based on Rosanne’s personal visits to each setting. She lives in Coloma, Michigan, with her husband and two sons.

This July marks the release of Do Not Forsake Me, Rosanne Bittner’s long-awaited sequel to her beloved title Outlaw Hearts. To celebrate, we’re pleased to welcome father and son Jake and Lloyd Harkner, who have agreed to sit down with us today to answer a view questions about their relationship and the impact it has on this latest release.

What do you enjoy most about being a father?

JAKE: Realizing the true meaning of love, and proving I can be a good father in spite of how I was raised.

LLOYD: I’m a very young father. My son is only 6. But, I love guiding him the way my father guided me.

About Do Not Forsake Me

Fate brought them together. His past may tear them apart.

Miranda Hayes’ life was changed the day she faced down infamous gunslinger Jake Harkner…and walked away with his heart. Their fates have been intertwined ever since. Hunted by the law, fleeing across a savage land, their desperate love flourished despite countless sorrows. Now, twenty-six years later, their family has finally found some measure of peace…balanced on the knife’s edge of danger.

Jake has spent his years as a U.S. Marshal atoning for sins, bringing law to the land he once terrorized. But no matter how hard he fights the demons of his brutal past, the old darkness still threatens to consume him. Only Miranda keeps the shadows at bay. But when outlaws looking for revenge strike a fatal blow, Jake risks losing the one woman who saw past his hard exterior and to the man inside.

He always knew there’d be the devil to pay. He just never realized he might not be the one to bear the ultimate price.

Excerpt

In this excerpt Jake has been gravely wounded and Randy has been through the hell of thinking she was losing him. She is talking with a reporter who wants to write about Jake.

“Ma’am, if I may ask … how do you do it?” Jeff asks.

“You’re a mother, a grandmother, and wife to a man who has to be difficult to live with.”

Randy glanced at Jake’s guns lying on the table.

“No one understands my husband the way I do, Jeff. No one. I know every detail about his life, including when he was a little boy. I know how he thinks and what his needs are. I know how he suffers silently on the inside. That’s how I do it.” She wiped at her eyes.

“Jake has a good heart. He treats me with total devotion and respect, so no, he’s not difficult to live with. We’ve had some really bad times, a couple of them a big test of our marriage, but deep down I’ve always known how much Jake Harkner loves and needs me.”

She seemed to be in another world for the moment. “And years ago, not long after we’d met and then gone our separate ways, thinking it was best because he was a wanted man, Jake rode out of my life and I headed west to find my brother. The people I traveled with left me at a trading post when they thought I was dying from a snakebite, and the men at the trading post were … awful. I was in terrible pain, sure I was dying … and one day I heard Jake’s voice, felt him lift me into his arms and promise me he’d never let me out of his sight again. He’d tracked me down and come back for me. I remember how gentle he was when nursing me back from death, bathing me, feeding me, keeping me warm … and never once did he take advantage or touch me wrongly. I knew then all I needed to know about him. I fell totally, deeply, madly in love with the real Jake Harkner.”

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This June, Rosanne Bittner’s beloved title, Outlaw Hearts, will be back in print for the first time in over twenty years! To celebrate, we’re pleased to welcome the hero and heroine of the book Jake Harkner and Miranda Hayes, who will be sitting down with us today for a quick Q&A.

If you had $100 to spend on anything you want, what would it be?

Jake: Not sure – something special for my wife, but she’d have to pick it out.

Miranda: I would probably spend it on my grandchildren.

About the Book

United by chance, bound by fate, consumed by passion.

Miranda Hayes has lost everything—her family, her husband, her home. Orphaned and then widowed, desperate to find a safe haven, she sets out to cross a savage land alone…until chance brings her face-to-face with notorious gunslinger Jake Harkner.

Hunted by the law and haunted by a brutal past, Jake has spent a lifetime fighting for everything he has. He’s never known a moment’s kindness…until fate brings him to the one woman willing to reach past his harsh exterior to the man inside. He would die for her. He would kill for her. He will do whatever it takes to keep her his.

Spanning the dazzling West with its blazing deserts and booming gold towns, Jake and Miranda must struggle to endure every hardship that threatens to tear them apart. But the love of an outlaw comes with a price…and even their passion may not burn bright enough to conquer the coming darkness.

USA Today bestseller and award-winning novelist Rosanne Bittner is known as the “Queen of Western Historical Romance” for her thrilling love stories and historical authenticity. Her epic romances span the West—and are often based on Rosanne’s personal visits to each setting. She lives in Coloma, Michigan, with her husband and two sons.

Excerpt

Miranda watched Jake saddle up while she held the two gunnysacks full of supplies she had prepared for him. He gave Outlaw’s stomach a light punch. “Suck it in, boy,” he barked. “You don’t fool me, filling yourself up with air like that.” The horse’s belly contracted, and Jake tightened the cinch. “All I need is to be on a hard ride to get away from some marshal only to have my saddle slip on me.”

Miranda saw him wince, knew he was still in pain. “Jake, can’t you wait one more day?”

Jake kept his eyes on the cinch, thinking about the restless night he had had, lying awake and wondering what Mrs. Miranda Hayes would have done if he had gone out to her cot and planted his mouth on her sweet lips. “No, ma’am. Too dangerous for you having me here, what with that sheriff sweet on you and all. Hard telling when he might show up again.” He let down a stirrup and turned to meet her eyes. Was that a trace of tears he saw there? No. He would not believe that. “If you had any common sense at all, you would stay here and marry the sheriff and let him take care of you.”

Miranda stiffened with indignation, glad he had said something that made her momentarily forget about wanting to cry. “Why do all men think a woman needs ‘taking care of’? I’ll be just fine on my own. And if I did have common sense, you would be sitting in prison or hanging from a tree by now, and I would be five thousand dollars richer.”

Jake grinned. “You’ve got me there.”

Miranda thought how he looked even more handsome now in the morning light. It was the best he had looked since the first day she saw him in the supply store, bearded and mean-looking, then so sick after that. He had a fine, square jaw and dark, wide-set eyes that were perfectly outlined with dark eyelashes. Even his nose seemed perfectly matched to the rest of his face, and when he smiled, his teeth were straight and clean. She surmised that in spite of his cruelty, Jake’s father must have been as handsome as his mother was beautiful, for they had produced a son that was the best of both. How sad that they had never given that son a decent home.

A faint scar on Jake’s left jaw and another tiny one on his upper lip only seemed to make him even more handsome, lending a ruggedness to his looks that was accented by his tall frame and broad shoulders. She found herself wondering how his full, firm lips would feel on her mouth, how a man like Jake Harkner kissed a woman…”

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