Steve Decker, an American intelligence operative whose specialty is counter-terrorism, has devoted his life to the protection of his country, denying his emotions in order to survive in a deadly shadow world of violence and deception. Desperate to find a new direction for himself, Decker makes a pilgrimage to Santa Fe, where he settles and at last finds peace and, eventually, love. His fantasies about marriage and children with Beth Dwyer, a captivating, enigmatic woman, are destroyed when four gunmen break into his house in the middle of the night. Decker's initial assumptions that he is being stalked by enemies from his other life proves incorrect when Beth suddenly disappears after a bomb destroys her house. He is forced to realize that she the target, that a dark past haunts her, that she is not the person he thought she was. Fearing for life, Decker sets out to find her and comes face to face with the harrowing consequences of extreme denial.