M.W. Pilgrim, renowned photojournalist, has spent the last fifteen years ‘shooting war’ in the killing fields worldwide―traveling light―her camera, a .45 semi-automatic and a bottle of Jack all stashed in her backpack. She’s suffered physical wounds and mental anguish, dodging bullets and bureaucrats as she documented the decimation of human life. But she’s always survived until one day in the summer of 1995, Madi finds herself stretched to the limits of endurance while filming the genocide in Bosnia, and her luck runs out. Severely wounded, she’s evacuated to Landstuhl Medical Hospital in Germany, and her life hangs in limbo until trauma surgeon Neal Baker takes over her care. But common sense and caution have never been her way of life. Barely able to walk, Madi defies her doctors, a decision she soon regrets, and her actions will torment her, even after she returns home only to be caught up in a different kind of war that has invaded the streets of San Francisco, the thrown-aways kids that fight for survival, lost souls the world has forgotten. Colonel Neal Baker, trauma surgeon, has dedicated his life to medicine. He’s fought anger and fatigue, operating in field hospitals never far from the raging battles lines where the wounded mount, and too many die or go mad. Reassigned to Landstuhl, he faces another kind of anguish. Gone are the battlefields, but not the wounded who arrived daily, testing his skills and resolve, demanding he put aside his personal life until one night a woman arrives, airlifted from the carnage of Srebrenica―unconscious, broken and bleeding―and his skills are again put to the test. Doctor-patient relations take on a new meaning as he disregards protocol and becomes infatuated yet frustrated by the tall blonde with penetrating blue-gray eyes. But it’s Madi’s sassy mouth that drives him wild and fuels his desire. Medical order means nothing to her; promises are broken, and her determination to do the impossible puts lives in jeopardy. Blindsided by a passion that builds each day, Neal Baker joins Madi on a journey that speeds past chaos only to end in a final separation. Haunted by desire and doubt, he will travel halfway around the world to find her. Caught up in her battle to save the lives of the lost and broken, he finds more, an awakening of hope―a gathering of love and pain―then trust that leads to a new beginning.
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