Hondo Lane was a man who'd come to terms with the hard land in which he lived. He rode dispatch for General Crook through the Arizona desert-a severe and beautiful landscape where one mistake could lead to a quick and lonely death. It was on the way to deliver an important message about an imminent Apache raid that he came upon an isolated ranch defended by a lone woman and her young son. But Angie Lowe wasn't just any woman. She was a fighter with as much grit and determination as any man. She, too, had carved out a place in this hard and beautiful land, and she wasn't about to leave it without making a stand-for her beliefs, for her son, and for the future.