OWN THE NIGHT introduces us to Rachel, who runs a combination dude vacation ranch and family cattle spread, and to a New York advertising agency businesswoman, Alana Richardson, who intends to spend a week staying at Sundance ranch.

Unfortunately for Alana her luggage is stolen minutes after she arrives in the one-horse town of Blackfoot Falls. Her case, laptop, purse, phone.... She has no documentation to show who she is and the ranch bookings have a mix-up so she has no room for the night. The local sheriff, Noah Calder, is fed up with cutie city girls hanging out in town trying to catch his eye, along with the eye of any other good- looking cowboy. He initially thinks Alana is just another of the same. But a message from another lawman warning him that a pair of con-artists are headed his direction, one of whom fits Alana's description, is enough to ring alarm bells. Noah decides that he cannot let Rachel and her guests suffer if this visitor is indeed the suspect, so to keep an eye on Alana he offers her a room in his own home.

The temperature rises as the attractive single man and the executive who is forced to readjust get to know each other. Alana buys cheap replacement clothes instead of her designer garb and, with the bank closed over the weekend, helps out in the bar to earn a little money. Not all the townsfolk welcome the city trade and speculation about her and the sheriff is rife. Alana is in part escaping from her overbearing mother and the contrast with Noah's family could not have been finer.

I did find it implausible that a visitor to town would parade around her host's home in nothing but a t-shirt, which seemed rude as well as unladylike. And do people really travel across country by plane and car wearing four- inch heels? Especially if they plan to spend the week on a ranch? Sartorial questions aside, Debbi Rawlins ensures there is enough going on to keep the reader's interest, if not very much in the way of ranch scenery. The Manhattan executive obliged to change her ways and get back in touch with reality makes for some amusing moments. I also liked the depiction of the handsome lawman who has the good of his townspeople firmly in mind, and the friendly, witty community in Montana.