A woman. Her teenage daughter. A handsome, laid-back, chauvinisticrancher. And the savagery of unseen forces at large in the mountain wilds ofUtah. New York Times bestselling author Karen Robards is here at herpassionate best as she tracks the perils of the wilderness, the hidden face ofviolence, and–most awesome of all–the powerful feelings that evolve betweenmen and women when lives are at stake.

Lynn Nelson is beautiful, harried–and divorced. A thirty-five-year-old singlemother, she agrees to help chaperone her teenage daughter Rory and nineteenother girls on a wilderness trip. It seems pretty simple at first: the trip issponsored by Adventure Incorporated, the weather is fine, and nothing is moretroublesome than the minor skirmishes that sometimes flare up between girls andtheir mothers.

Except that there’s more lurking along these mountain trails than adolescenthormones. Lynn and Rory find themselves set apart from the rest of the group, with only outfitter Jess Feldman for protection–he with the blazing babyblues, and the more than slightly macho attitude that women can’t handle theoutdoors. Normally Jess would be protection enough, but surrounding the triois a danger far more menacing than any of them realizes–the face of an unknownand all too real evil is at large. As this terrifying ordeal plays itself out, the sparks that fly between Jess and Lynn make for a passion every bit asdramatic as the twisted trails of the majestic Uinta mountain range.