Ellen Brubeck is looking for the legacy of a childhood memory, following up on something her father told her years ago. Now her father is missing, and she finds herself being followed. Jim Parks has come back to town just long enough to sell his family legacy to the highest bidder and try to start his life over -- perhaps with an older woman and former lover. They become unlikely and contentious allies, joined by a law officer who tries to keep order between the old guard and newcomers in a county some think of as a new Eden.