Desperado

Lovely Maggie Barton and hardbitten Cord Romero share a tangled and complicated past. While still a young girl, Maggie fell deeply in love with Cord, but he's become a hard, cynical man who no longer believes in the emotion. When Cord is nearly killed in an assassination attempt, Maggie returns to Texas to care for him, but he spurns her offer of help. It isn't long, however, before their lives are once again inextricably bound as they join forces to bring down a crime cartel that exploits young children. Maggie is a woman with deep secrets, and Cord is a man with a badly scarred heart. Is there any hope that these two wounded people will find a way to heal each other? Perhaps, but first they must survive the threat to their lives as they race across Tangiers and through Amsterdam in a desperate gamble to bring justice to an evil crime lord. . . Readers will be delighted to find that Desperado features a hero and heroine first introduced in Palmer's Lord of the Desert. The settings of Texas ranch, Moroccan desert, and Amsterdam canals are well rendered, the suspense plot has some interesting, hair-raising chases, and the romantic interludes carry Palmer's trademark steam heat. --Lois Faye Dyer.