After her fiancé is killed, Laura Friday takes an investigative reporting assignment in El Paso. She has no intention of reviving a friendship with the sheriff there, Mitch Carter, a former deputy in her hometown of Cole Harbor, Maine. That plan is nixed when Laura's aunt is brutally attacked in her hotel. Laura's investigation into the discovery of a headless corpse and two warring drug cartels leaves her wondering if the attack on her aunt is a warning to back off? When Mitch is wounded by a cold-blooded assassin, Laura ignores the death threats and attempts to take him to the doctor, but both are kidnapped by a rival drug lord and taken to a desert stronghold. In a daring escape, Laura and Mitch must survive frigid nights and dangerous animals, including the two-legged kind. Through it all Mitch and Laura cannot deny their growing love. As he gets weaker, she is faced with the decision to leave him while she seeks help or stay and watch him die. Will she risk everything to save Mitch—and a love more precious than life?