"Fabulous romantic suspense"

In Colby, Texas, seventeen years old Amy Smith waits at night by herself for her boyfriend Dante Moran to arrive to take her home from her job at the Dairy Dip. However, Dante is held up at college and so is running late. Someone attacks Amy, but by the time Dante arrives his girlfriend is gone. No body was ever recovered.

Seventeen years later, Dante leaves the FBI to take a job with the Dundee Agency, experts on personal security. When the Governor and two State senators from Mississippi ask Dundee to find a runaway, they assign Dante to lead the investigation. Dante is stunned as sixteen year old Leslie looks just like Amy did. He visits influential billionaire G.W. Westbrook and his daughter Tessa to start the inquiries into finding the seemingly happy Leslie. Dante thinks Tessa remotely looks like his Amy. Still, as Dante and Tessa fall in love, she admits that she cannot remember her first seventeen years of life. More to the point is that he must find a teen in trouble, who ran away because she learned that her father was a state-executed rapist, a truth hidden by her beloved mother and grandfather.

Best selling author Beverly Barton furbishes readers with a fabulous romantic suspense starring two wonderful protagonists and a fantastic support cast. The story line follows mostly the investigative efforts of the hero, but also shines a light on runaway teens. The support cast is a strong group that helpfully will lead to Dundee sequels especially two other agents on the verge of war between them.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted November 15, 2004

Summary

Sometimes love is stronger than death. . . Security agent Dante Moran can't afford the luxury of love- in his line of work, emotions can get you killed. Besides, he's never recovered from the pain of losing his high school sweetheart to a serial rapist and killer. As far as Dante is concerned, his heart died the day he identified her body. But when he's hired to protect Tessa Westbrook's young daughter from a kidnapper, Dante is shocked to feel his long-buried emotions rise to the surface. Tessa stirs something in him that he hasn't felt since he was a kid. . .something that makes him think she could become more than a client. But Tessa's past is full of secrets. . .and with a killer on the loose, Dante must decide if she's worth dying for--or a reason to live.