The Laws of Attraction by Mary Connealy - Wyoming Sunrise, book 2

If widowed town seamstress Nell Armstrong has to make one more pair of boring chaps for the cowboys in her tiny Wyoming town, she might lose her mind. So meeting Brand Nolte, a widower father struggling to raise three girls, seems like her dream come true. Brand has no idea how to dress the girls, and Nell finally has a chance to both create beautiful dresses and teach the girls to sew. But Nell is much more than a seamstress, and the unique legal and investigative skills and knowledge she picked up alongside her late lawman husband soon become critical when a wounded stagecoach-robbery survivor is brought to town. As danger closes in from all sides, Nell and Brand must discover why there seems to be a bull's-eye on their backs.

The opening of the book, Nell's desperation to sew something pretty instead of making chaps, cracked me up. As one who did alterations for a jeans store, I have felt the desperation to do ANYTHING besides hem or patch one more pair of blue jeans. I feel for her. I really do.

More than that, I really liked the contrasts in Nell. She's an elegant lady who loves sewing pretty things, but she has the mind of a detective and can lend a hand to any problem, be it teaching motherless girls about feminine things or digging out bullets. I think just about everybody has unexpected skills that don't fit a first impression of a personality, but it's not so often seen in literature. The romance took more of a back seat in this one, but I enjoyed the story.

Wyoming Sunrise
1. Forged in Love
2. The Laws of Attraction
3. Marshaling Her Heart