u/Soul1traveler

I have tried to search for this book and am completely hitting a wall. Google only wants to bring up "The Whip" by Karen Kondazian which is not the correct book.

The plot as best as I can remember:
- Set in like a western/gold mine town?
- Man goes by "whip" because he has a whip and is good with it
- Whip meets a woman in a general store dressed in mens clothes and being harassed by some local guys
- The woman told everyone she lives with her husband, but its actually her uncle who has been missing and once people find out that shes all alone creepy men start to try to come on her property
- Against her wishes, whip hangs around her property warding off bad guys and killing animals for her
- She thinks her uncle was a miner or something, but whip knows he was actually a bounty hunter (i think?) that part im unsure of. Whip and her go off to search for her uncle.
- definitely pretty smutty, theres a part where they get stuck in a rain storm and hide under his coat just crouching in a field or something? He ends up getting her off while shes just crouched in front of him?
- I think in the end something happens and they need to leave her house but they cant go out the front (bad guys?) and they escape through some underground cave exit from her house? also not sure about this part exactly but I feel like it was something weird like that