Alligator Gold

Cracker Westerns are rip-roarin, action-packed, can't-put-'em-down tales set in the frontier days of Florida. They are full of adventure, real heroes, and vivid, authentic details that bring Florida's history to life. With enough shoot-outs and stampedes for any good Western story, Alligator Gold adds its unique Florida twist with an alligator in a deep blue spring. The Civil War is over and Caleb Hawkins is finally on his way home from a Northern prisoner-of-war camp. Hawk's been trying to get his mind off giving the rotten Snake Barber part of the secret to finding his family's hidden cache of gold when he was delirious with malaria at the camp. Now he's focused on getting back to the D-Wing, his Florida cattle ranch, and Travis, his only son. But his code of honor intervenes when he encounters a very pregnant Madelaine Wilkes along the trail. Hawk is duty-bound to help her, which comes to include taking her home with him. What he learns about the father of her baby tarnishes his clear attraction to her. Maddy Wilkes has her own code of honor, which gets in the way of her strong attraction to Hawk. And Snake Barber's singular lack of moral code gets in the way of any normal life on the D-Wing. See all of the books in this series

"Louisiana's Chenier Plain is a 2,200-square-mile region of marshes and oak-covered ridges (cheniers) that stretches along the Gulf of Mexico from Sabine Lake to Vermilion Bay. Its inhabitants, some 6,000 people of Cajun and other ancestries, retain strong economic and cultural ties to the land and its teeming wildlife. Gomez explores the interaction of the land, people, and wildlife of the Chenier Plain, revealing both the uniqueness of the region and the challenges it faces". -- Jacket.