Emma Qualyes survived the death of her parents and younger brother. She's become a hermit living with her older brother, talented at a craft few young people do...quilting. Now her brother Ben, a world-famous epidemiologist, and his fellow doctor Wayne Meeks is leaving for a long trip and Emma's getting a baby-sitter though she's seventeen.

Dylan Meeks survived not only the death of his mother and disabling injuries but estrangement from his father. He's gone through post-traumatic stress disorder to post-traumatic growth...established a new normal. He lives his life to the fullest without being careless of the gift he's been given. Yet now he is spending the summer in Arizona with a stranger—a girl no less, who's his babysitter.

No sooner do Emma and Dylan meet than danger looms in the form of a phone call that threatens Ben, Wayne and even Emma's life. Who's after them? Why? Can the desert save them when man and Nature attempt to kill them?