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Katie and her widowed father have always lived on their own, high up in a place few intruders would dare approach: alongside the crater of a collapsed volcano. They've built a simple but happy life for themselves, far from the frontier perils of the world below-until a long-promised birthday trip to the rough-and-tumble town of Badwater takes an ugly turn and brings the outside world much too close. With it comes grave danger and unimaginable loss, but also something Katie had barely dreamed possible for herself: a heart-pounding but tender romance, the kind to build a life on.