The Desert Remains

the long version

"When Ruby McCullough comes home to the family ranch for her mother's funeral, Daniel Stewart hopes to finally become Ruby's lover--or walk away forever. Instead, Daniel descends into the McCulloughs' vortex of secrecy, betrayal, transgression, and cathartic revelation. Against a vivid, gritty backdrop of modern ranch life a mystery unfolds. On horseback, Ruby and Daniel search the remote canyons and mesas of the ranch for the burial site where Ruby's father, Calvin, has covertly laid her mother to rest. Ruby also seeks her mother's lost personal diaries, which she hopes will validate Ruby's accusations of abuse against Calvin and settle her inheritance. As Ruby wrestles her demons and struggles with forgiveness, Daniel unravels his tangled attraction to her. The landscape of the ranch, with its imminent archaeological past and eerily spellbinding presence, draws them into shadowy epiphanies of love, desire, and spiritual insight. In this compelling terrain, enthralled by Ruby's sensuality and intuitive sensitivity, Daniel seeks a path to transcendence at the intersection of body and soul."--Jacket.