Mine to Serve — Mel Teshco

A man with a secret past and a woman with an uncertain future.

When Lucinda Farrell is found guilty of a crime she didn't commit, she's resigned to her fate. It's either stay on a dying Earth or travel through the galaxy to the new world of Solitaire to complete her three-year sentence. Many claim the space bucket, Earth Ship Siren, won't make the long twelve-month journey and are almost proven right when a micro-meteor shower hits and cripples one of the three ships heading to Solitaire.

As pilot of the ES Siren, Jarred Cooper has never been short of female admirers. But he's got a secret he holds close to his chest -- literally. Letting go of his past has never been so difficult when he's yet to find a woman who makes his breath catch and his heart beat fast. He knows love at first sight doesn't exist. Then he glimpses the beautiful prisoner, Lucinda.

But when overcrowding and rationing of food become serious issues, getting her to understand they can make things work, despite his past and their huge social divide, just might be the biggest hurdle of them all.