Sometimes what we think is best for us, isn't necessarily so. Josie Mayne divorced her husband, Pardee, for a more stable life, a life without half-truths, without imminent danger, without a man who never learned to open up. She didn't even truly know her husband's first name. Josie has traded all that for a life with a millionaire fiancé who tells her he loves her for who she is. Josie has told herself that this is what she wants. She loves her guy, and she's earned the right to a stable relationship. No more flying around the world catching those accused bond skippers, no more flying choppers while people are shooting at her and no more hot sex as a release when the danger has passed. No, crop dusting and the occasional bounty hunting for lesser crimes and a millionaire husband are just the ticket.

So says Josie until her ex-husband shows up in California just as the fiancé is down on his knees formally proposing to her. He has, once again, ruined her moment. But Pardee has come to tell Josie that her stepson, Pardee's son she helped raise, has been kidnapped and is being held for ransom down in Mexico. Pardee really needs Josie and her flying skills, but his guise is just to inform her. It seems the kidnappers are retaliating for the very first job Josie did with Pardee when they became partners and flew into a Mexican camp to get a guy for the US Feds. Everyone else connected to that case is dead.

Josie knows she must go with Pardee to rescue her stepson. She prays her fiancé will understand, and if he loves her and the relationship is to work, this will be the test. But can Josie trust herself once paired with her sexy ex- husband who still makes her insides tingle? Josie and Pardee become the team they once were while Josie vows to keep the intimate part out of it.

RUNNING ON EMPTY is a great story, pulling you into the plot as swift as the chopper Josie flies and sucking you into the heated passion and temptation. It's a great example of the grass not being greener on the other side of the fence. Hot-blooded passion certainly competes with adventurous danger in this story.