Arley Mowbray, only fourteen years old, is dreaming girlhood dreams in South Texas when, on a dare, she writes a letter to an imprisoned robber nearly twice her age. Almost overnight, the story of Arley and Dillon LeGrande becomes the stuff of legend. Their lives intertwine with rhythms of age -- old tales of love, too reckless to last, too mesmerizing to flee.

Transformed from an innocent to an outlaw's wife and then the mother of his child, Arley unwittingly draws another into the eye of the hurricane. Public-aid lawyer Annie Singer is a tough talker, but her careful existence is as planned and practical as a cardigan sweater, until the day Arley walks into her office and into her life.

In a relationship that flourishes against all odds and all earthly logic, Arley reaches out to Annie as no one else has ever done. While her low-hope clients and her longtime sweetheard, Stuart, a committed death row lawyer, have been the focus of Annie's life, they now must take a back seat. Her involvement in Arley's fate swiftly outstrips advocacy, and even friendship, until she becomes the closest thing to a loving mother Arley has ever known, and the force that must stand between the girl and the storm.

Then Dillon escapes from prison on a terrifying errand -- to claim his wife and baby daughter? or to destroy them? -- and the stage is set for a climax that drives both women to risk everything they hold dear.

As Arley's defender, Annie is trapped in a crossfire of desire and disaster, as Dillon, traceless as a phantom, moves closer and closer to his ultimate goal. With Dillon's passion for Arley a force so powerful it holds everyone who loves her hostage, Annie is compelled to examine the most basic assumptions of her careful path, and the boundaries of her well-protected heart.

(Book Jacket Description)