by Emma Holly

'Rule yourself, and you rule the world,' Julia Mueller's mother told her. That was some years before her daughter grew up to become a businesswoman so independent and successful that men found her too intimidating to love. Now Julia – formidably tall and flawlessly groomed – is looking for a man who won't be tamed too easily. When she encounters Zach, an unreconstructed hunk who runs a dude ranch in Montana, she thinks she might have found him. The closest Julia's ever been to a horse is looking at mounted police in Central Park but now, on a brainstorming business get-together with her colleagues, she’s happy to swap the boardroom for the stables.

He may be a hick and a ham-handed lover, but Zach's full of surprises – and that goes a long way in Julia's world. Where she thinks he's tough, he's gentle, and when she's confident she's got this particular cowboy broken in, he turns the tables on her. In an environment of snow-capped mountains and hearty breakfasts, has the steely Ms Mueller locked horns with an animal too wild even for her?