Returning to Esterloch, NY, Green Beret Roark Foster finds Monica Peterson, a doctor whose fragile heart is just the thing to banish the ghosts of his past. AWAY FROM THE FRONT Roark Foster kills at work. Truly. As a sniper for the Green Berets, he's snuffed everything ever asked of him, including all emotion. That last part was easy. After the tragedies of his youth with a Native American heritage, his heart had to go-which makes it all the more difficult to return to Esterloch, NY, to settle the estate of his recently deceased mother. And to deal with the desperate stranger he finds lurking in his yard. ...AND INTO A MINEFIELD Dr. Monica Peterson's first step was to hide. That's why she came to this tiny upstate town, fleeing everyone and everything to stay safe. Next will come Plan B, when she thinks of it, but until then her secrets will stay her own. Yet one intractable soldier calls out to her with his hard eyes and harder body, promising both solace and ineffable danger. For the past is not a war you can escape, and every step with Roark will lead toward an explosion: of old enemies, of hidden pain, and of a love that can erase all want.