The Burning Hills A Novel [Paperback]

Wounded, dehydrated, and escaping a violent feud with the men of Bob Sutton’s ranch, Trace Jordan is near collapse when he descends from the heat of the desert into a cool, secluded canyon. He wakes to find a beautiful woman gently nursing him back to health. Strong and proud, Maria Cristina has also suffered at the hands of Sutton and his men. The experience has left her hostile and defiant. Trace, intrigued by Maria’s grit and determination, can’t help trying to peel back her layers—but his attraction makes her a target.
 
Sutton’s men are watching and waiting for Trace to show himself. If he escapes, Maria will have to face them alone. But if he convinces her to go with him, Trace and Maria will have to survive a heat-blasted, waterless desert. And if that doesn’t kill them, the Apaches will.Our foremost storyteller of the American West,Louis L’Amourhas thrilled a nation by chronicling the adventures of the brave men and woman who settled the frontier. There are more than three hundred million copies of his books in print around the world.Chapter One



On a ridge above Texas Flat upon a rock shaped like flame, a hand moved upon the lava. The hand moved and then was still. In all that vast beige-gray silence there was no other movement and no sound.

A buzzard swinging in lazy circles above the serrated ridge had glimpsed that moving hand. Swinging lower, he saw a man who lay among the rocks atop the ridge. He was a long-bodied man in worn boots and jeans, a man with wide shoulders and a lean tough face.

It was the face of a hunter but now of a man hunted. A man who lay with his rifle beside him and who wore a belted gun; but the man still lived and the buzzard could wait.

Below and stretching away from the very foot of the ridge to lose itself in shimmering distance lay the glaring white expanse of the playa. Beyond the playa and even now riding up to draws that wol#