The Pride of Hannah Wade

Amid the stark surrounding of an Army post in the heart of Indian country, beautiful, cultured Hannah Wade has managed to create a private haven for herself and her handsome, dashing husband, Major Stephen Wade. And Stephen is proud not only of the home she has made for them, but of the the fact that the men in his command are smitten by his wife’s loveliness. Then suddenly, Hannah’s comfortable sheltered existence is shattered during an innocent afternoon ride when, her soldier escorts slain, she is taken captive by renegade Apaches under the leadership of the infamous Lutero. She is stripped naked and forced to ride in the burning desert sun, her pale skin blistering, her body easy prey to Lutero’s desires. Once they arrive at his tribe’s camp, she is enslaved by the Apache squaws. Yet through it all, Hannah never loses her courage or her indomitable will to survive. And though survival means living, thinking and acting like an Apache, she refuses to totally surrender — even when Lutero makes her his wife — secretly hoping that Stephen will one day rescue her. But even as Hannah gradually comes to accept her new life, Stephen is mounting raid after bloody raid, scouring the territory, seeking both to regain the woman he loves and to claim terrible vengeance on the savages who took her from him. Neither Hannah nor Stephen realizes how much her captivity is changing them both. Only a maverick like Jake Cutter, an Army captain who long ago learned to live by his own rules, truly understands how hard a trial Hannah and Stephen will face if they’ve ever reunited. For only he knows how harshly the “civilized” world will judge Hannah for valuing survival more than honor. And when he rescues Hannah from the Apache village, it is a different woman he returns to Fort Bayard, one who sees, for the first time, Stephen’s arrogant, prejudiced and vengeful nature. She is bewildered and alone, a woman who finds herself turning to the one man whose compassion and integrity match her own.