New York copywriter Royce Lindel takes a chance on a camping trip with two female friends in remote Big Bend, Texas. Little do they know that their schedule of activities includes being dumped in the desert by their guide. Matters look bleak until they stumble across other campers: three men whose business in the wilderness involves drugs and guns. When the men reluctantly rescue the stranded New Yorkers, Royce falls in love with the one they call Padre. But she doesn’t know his real name or why he’s running. She doesn’t even know how he feels about her-until she’s kidnapped by the people he just robbed.

The sequel to Padre is His Strange Ways, in which Fletcher Streiker steps in to help Padre and Royce find each other again-and what they’re willing to do to be together.