Hawke's Pride

Hawke's Pride is a historical romance by the American writer Norah Hess, published in 1991. It is set on a ranch in the American West.

The book begins with a forced marriage: Hawke Masters has been made to wed Rue by her grandfather's shotgun, and from the first moment she met him she has considered him the most insufferable man she has ever known. He makes it insultingly clear that he had no intention of marrying her and that the arrangement is not going to become a real marriage. He then takes her home to his ranch, where she is needed to look after his orphaned niece and nephew, and it is there that the situation between them begins to change, as Rue settles into the household and Hawke discovers that his first estimate of her was wrong. The work of the ranch and the family he is raising on it matter as much to the novel as the courtship does.

Hess wrote a long series of romances set in the American West, and this one turns on a husband who has to earn what he has already been given.