Orphaned at age twelve, Carmela Wade has lived a lie orchestrated by her uncle, pretending to be a survivor of an Indian kidnapping and profiting from telling her made-up story and allowing him to give her spurious tribal tattoos. But as she matures into adulthood, she hates the deceit about captivity and longs to be free. On a stagecoach in Arizona Territory, Carmela and her uncle are fellow passengers with U.S. Marshal Freeland McKay and his handcuffed prisoner. When the stage is attacked, a chance to make a new life is suddenly within Carmela's reach ... if she can survive the harsh terrain and being handcuffed to an unconscious man. This western romance with a faith thread takes the reader through 19th-century Arizona.