Heart of Thunder by Johanna Lindsay

Title: Heart of Thunder
Author: Johanna Lindsay
ISBN: 0380851180
Publisher: Avon Books/1983
Pages: 359

Samantha Kingsley is in love with her best friend's brother Adrien and travels with them on her way home from school in the East to Mexico. Along the way, their stagecoach picks up a handsome stranger. Hank Chevez is a reformed bandit trying to regain his childhood home. After losing his horse, he hitches a ride on a stagecoach and meets Samantha. Samantha sees the attractive stranger as an opportunity to make Adrien jealous, but her plan backfires. Hank appears to be falling for her. After learning the truth, he becomes sullen and hateful. Samantha responds in kind and they part ways. When she arrives home, she discovers that a violent Mexican bandit is trying to run her father off.
To force an American rancher off his ancestral land, Hank Chavez orders the kidnapping of the rancher's daughter, not knowing that the daughter is the same girl. Hank forces her to marry him and leaves her soon after.

Samantha is a strong willful girl who is a great shot. She is afraid of nothing. Very courageous and headstrong, she can more than take care of herself. She hates Hank although both are strongly attracted towards each other. Infact, they sizzle together.

Hank Chavez, the hero, as a roguish outlaw is very endearing. This is a superb love story between two very strong willed people. They require a year of living apart, to realize they cannot live without each other. Lindsay has created some minor characters too that would lend themselves to books of their own, Lorenzo, Hank's faithful outlaw/rancher friend and Sheldon, Samantha's brother