A Precious Stone

After the death of her parents and grandparents, eighteen-year-old Jewel Etchemendy, a Basque woman, inherits her familys 28,000-acre sheep ranch in Johnson County, Wyoming. When she receives an anticipated, yet unwelcome, marriage proposal from her best friendthe son of the family who manages her ranchshe flees, abandoning everything while throwing herself into college and then serving in Iraq as a combat nurse. Jewels story begins after she leaves the military to return home. She finds herself in an Alaskan wilderness competition where she meets and falls in love with a man who takes her on an adventure of a lifetime, where she is forced to make the ultimate life or death decision to save herself. After meeting Grady McDonald, an ex-U.S. Army sniper from Belle Fourche, South Dakota, she learns to accept love again. Gradys family becomes her own, and the love and support from them strengthens her enough to face her fears and return to everything she had abandoned in Wyoming. Still not content to simply settle in Wyoming, Jewel and Grady embark on another adventure that changes the course of their lives. What is supposed to be a simple trip to help provide humanitarian aid, turns into a nightmare that takes them as far as Uganda where they will have to survive harsh conditions, militant Inherahamwe rebels, and a hostage situation that takes them beyond their limits. Grady, along with a team of ex-military men from various branches of the armed services, will have to call on their military background and experience to free them from the grips of one of the most feared terrorists in Africa.