Forced to succumb to the brutal savage ways of a band of wild Comanches who attacked her California-bound coach, Lisa wished only to escape and regain her freedom. Instead, she was made a hostage. Because of her striking beauty and fighting spirit the warrior Nakon took her as his wife. She was in awe of his handsomeness and his strength and quite powerless to fight him because she responded to him like no other man she had ever met. As her devotion and desire for Nakon grew into a deep searing passion, the thought of fleeing, which once obsessed her mind, faded. Until the day came when she was found and forced to return to her old world. How could she leave the man she loved—yet how could she explain her overwhelming passion for an Indian warrior? Nakon had no choice but to let Lisa go. He promised they would meet again someday—because he loved her, because he needed her, and because in their hearts they would always possess THE FOREVER PASSION.

A NEGLECTED BRIDE... Lovely Lisa Anderson understood her husband's restlessness only too well. The moment she saw the familiar wanderlust in his blue eyes, she told him to go ahead and leave their comfortable California ranch and to come back only when he was ready. But while her husband was away, the auburn-haired beauty found it hard to deny her own passionate nature, especially when Cruz, the handsome desperado, commandeered her ranch. And when he captured her and took her to his mountain hideaway, where she was forced at gunpoint to pretend to be his bride, her protests were only half-hearted, for she found herself on the verge of surrendering to the ecstasy of her captor's virile embrace. A PASSIONATE PLUNDER... Though he'd been a bandit since he was a youngster, Cruz could steal but he could never kill. His gang had ordered him to slay Lisa's menfolk and take command of the ranch, but once he found the svelte senorita all by herself, the rugged loner couldn't bring himself to harm a hair on her lovely head. Instead, he charmed her, complimented her...and then began to caress her. Rather than play the hit man for his gang of bandits, Cruz vowed that he would spirit the lovely lady away, capture her heart as well as her tantalizing body, and become her daytime protector, her midnight lover, her DESPERADO DREAM.