Into the Desert

As she approaches her twenty-fi fth birthday, Gabrielle "Ellie" Nylander realizes she needs to get a grip. Single (and unhappy), she distracts herself by drinking, smoking, and carousing like a hooker on holiday. She's not yet met her match, romantically, but her eyes are open. Her life is okay (if a little boring) in the small town of Issaquah, Washington. She's proud to be a member of the Black Ridge Dance Company, but she still wants more. She'd give anything for a little excitement in her okay life. One night while driving home, she gets what she asked for. Th anks to an exploding tire, she fi nds herself in need of help on a rainy night. When that help arrives in the form of tall, tan, and oh-my-God, Ellie's life changes forever. Mickaela, a bold, confi dent, and sexy woman, is the reason. Ellie the virgin realizes that she now has a serious crush on this amazing woman who is more than her match. Unfortunately, her life is in for other changes too, ones she's considerably less enthusiastic about. In the fi rst few weeks of her new romance, her life is fi lled with exhilaration, scrutiny, intrigue, and danger, and then Ellie is stalked, stabbed, and kidnapped. It's just the fi rst step of the weird dance her life is about to become. Mickaela breaks the horrible news that she must go back to Iraq to save a friend who is in deep trouble. How much more excitement can Ellie take?