Charlee returns to the remote town of Snowflake, Montana, to finish out her year of teaching school, where the spring thaw is exposing more than mud on the prairie. She is drawn deeper into secrets of the illegal trafficking of Native American artifacts going on in the area, and finds herself in danger. She keeps most of her adventures from Ian, who she thinks worries too much, while she's trying to figure things out. Help comes from surprising sources, and she in turn is in the right place to help someone she'd never guess would need it. Meanwhile, Ian aches to protect her without dampening the fire of their long-distance romance, and somehow, if spring and love endure, make her his.