When Lucy Quince didn’t return that day she’d fought with her husband, a grieving Ambrose Quince reluctantly concluded that his wife had run off from him, her children and the ranch. Their tumultuous marriage had been fueled by passion but little else. But he never expected the locals to frame him for her murder three years later based upon a female body they’d found.

So when he’s standing on the scaffold about to hang, he’s more than happy to see her ride into town accompanied by his brother who had vowed to find her for him. Her scarred face and body and her loss of memory has some townsfolk questioning whether it is indeed his wife, but Ambrose knows the truth the moment he sees her astride her horse—regal and uncompromising. But Lucy has changed. She is no longer the petulant schoolgirl he’d married but a strong, determined woman even if she is uncertain about him and her place in their lives.

One thing Lucy is not uncertain about is her children. One look at her daughter and Lucy knows she is the girl’s mother.

And so begins the journey of two strangers who must rebuild a marriage that lay in rubble and ruin. They must start at the beginning, at the foundation of any partnership—earning each others trust.

Lucy had been blindfolded when she was abducted, tortured, scarred and violated by three men. Could this cold, steely-eyed stranger who claims her as wife been a party to her degradation, could he have left her for dead? For Lucy, the quest to find her killers is terrifying but necessary if she is going to get her life back. 

For his part, Ambrose can’t understand why she would have left him, not totally buying her story of abduction considering she’d lit out on her horse in a snit. But as Ambrose comes to know this new Lucy, he admires her pluck, courage and work ethic—not qualities his old Lucy had possessed. Slowly, trust grows, is tested, sometimes fails and sometimes succeeds. And with this tentative trust comes the first stirrings of their former passion.

But Lucy’s captors are still out there and they are gunning for her now that they know she’s alive. But who are they? Where are they? As she looks amongst the faces of her former acquaintances, neighbors and friends for someone who would want to kill her, she also wonders why? And can she trust her husband to protect her when he failed to do so before? Or should she rely solely on herself?