City boy Chase Russell is on the fast track to self-destruction. A star athlete, he gets into trouble with drugs and alcohol. Fulfilling a community service sentence in Yellowstone National Park is the last thing he wants to do. After a night of drinking in the park, he wakes up to find his new friends gone, and everything around him has changed.
Sarah Osborne grew up in the rugged Yellowstone wilderness. She can hunt and track right alongside the most experienced men. When some Indians drop a near-dead man off on her doorstep, she doesn’t know what to think. He’s convinced he’s from the future, and wants to find a way home.
Chase has no idea how he ended up time traveling to the past. He doesn’t know the first thing about surviving without modern conveniences. Finding your own food means a quick trip to the nearest fast food joint, not hunting and foraging for it. Time and again, his will is tested to stay alive in this untamed land. Is his growing love for a brave woman who shows him what it truly means to be a man strong enough to keep him in the past, or is he still determined to return to the ease and comforts of the future?
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A choking sensation startled him awake. Something cold and sharp pressed into his throat. His eyes shot open as he tried to back away, but the pressure increased. Startled, Chase stared into the darkest, most ferocious eyes he had ever seen. A black-haired man leaned over him, his forearm pressed across his throat, the cold blade of a large hunting knife grazing his jugular.
“Where’s Sarah,” the dark man growled in a low voice.
Chase couldn’t speak. He couldn’t breathe. He struggled against the restraint, which only encouraged his tormentor to increase the pressure. This wasn’t happening again, was it? A little over two weeks had passed since the last threat on his life, and now he was staring death in the face again.
“Where’s my daughter?” the man growled again. Although menacing, he spoke so calmly, he could have been simply shooting the breeze, as if this was a normal way for him to have a conversation.
Wait! Daughter?
Chase tried to speak. Only gurgling sounds escaped his throat from the man’s tight hold. Sarah’s father must have realized he was trying to communicate. His hold lessened. Chase gasped for air. Abruptly, the large man grabbed him by the neck and pulled him off the bed. Chase scrambled to get a foothold on the ground. Sarah’s father slammed him face first into the wall, twisting his arm behind his back.
“Calm down, man,” Chase ground out. “Sarah’s fine. This isn’t what it looks like.”
The older man released his hold and took a step back. Chase breathed a sigh of relief. Slowly, he turned to face Sarah’s father. The man was a good inch shorter than he, but there was no question who would come out the victor in a fight. At least twice his age, the man projected strength and confidence. Chase could hold his own in a good bar brawl, but he had no intention of going head to head with this man.
“Tell me what you’ve done with my daughter,” he said in the same eerily calm voice as before.
“She told me she was going out collecting roots,” Chase said, rubbing the back of his neck, still feeling the bite of the other man’s fingers. “I’ve been asleep all morning.”
“Then answer this: Who are you, and more important, why are you sleeping in her bed?”
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