This story is part of York’s long-running 43 Light Street series for Harlequin Intrigue that began with #143 Life Line.

“She had lived a life of terror. A life of deprivation. A life in which nothing had been free or easy. She had learned how to get along in the world any way she could.”

That’s the first paragraph of the Prologue, and was certainly enough to keep me turning pages. Who is she, and where does she come from that is so terrible? We actually don’t find out the answers to those questions for a long time, since our heroine falls, practically into our hero’s lap, with no memory of who she is or where she comes from, only the certain knowledge that she must complete the task given her or thousands will die. A task which she cannot remember.

Our hero is one Max Dakota, or at least that’s the name he’s currently using. He happens to be fishing in Florida, not on holiday as an early retired dot-com millionaire, but undercover, investigating the murder of a young man who may have known too much about the local drug trade. Does the woman he names Annie Oakland (for her proficiency with firearms) know more about the illegal goings on in Hermosa Harbor than she claims? Or is the mystery surrounding her something much more deadly? And can he open his heart to a woman whose courage and competence remind him so much of his risk-taking late wife and covert operations partner?

For the 43 Light Street story previous to this one, see York’s Intimate Strangers, Harlequin Intrigue #717 (ISBN: 0-373-22717-5). ( )