Take a former country star, add a beautiful mining magnate, stir into a tiny town known for its fossil beds and stand back. It is an explosive mixture! Wesley Callaghan was a star ten years ago, now he is an itinerant ranch hand. Yelisa MacKenzie has inherited her family's mercury mine and operates it herself. One night at the local bar, they are both in the audience when a small band takes the stand. The leader recognizes Wesley and persuades him to sing a couple of numbers. Yelisa is intrigued and electricity crackles between them. Complications set in when Wesley's current girlfriend causes ructions. Wesley decides to reactivate his music career and life is very exciting. An unexpected baby girl brings them a hefty dose of reality: she is not Yelisa's but is she Wesley's? Then Yelisa gets herself trapped in the mine when an explosive charge detonates too soon, and the excitement is nearly terminal. Barbara Olexer is a fourth-generation Oregonian. She has written more than twenty books and screenplays. Her first published book was The Enslavement of the American Indian, a nonfiction account of that little-known segment of American history. Her formative years were spent in small farming towns and a backwoods logging camp. It was while she lived in the logging camp that she went to Wheeler County High School in Fossil. Her life has been a tapestry of changes as she has lived and worked in small Oregon towns and some of the biggest cities, such as San Francisco, Hollywood, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. Her heart remains in rural Oregon. While her two grown sons and five grandchildren live in Oregon, Barbara lives in Columbia, Maryland, with her husband and pug dog, Chad.