Seventeen year old Marilla Eckert is in love with Langdon "Lang" Prescott, her family's hired farm hand, unaware of his passionate feelings toward her older sister Delia. When Delia weds a longtime beau, Lang settles for Marilla instead, despite his continued longing and intent to someday win Delia away from her husband. Marilla soon realizes where Lang’s devotion truly lies, yet she presses on, giving everything she has to offer, convinced she can still gain his love. Then America steps into the Great War. The men are sent a world away to fight, and Marilla's cares, coupled with the lack of her husband’s favor, finally wear her thin. When heartache and disaster strikes on every front, and Marilla’s hour of need leads her elsewhere for comfort, will each of them wind up too broken to ever find their hearts' true homes?

Modern girls seemed always in a hurry. Now the one who slammed into Jacob Hessman on the street near St. Paul's Union Depot has boarded his train. He knows her flapper-chic in her bobbed hair and stylish dress, so different from the sweet, country-bred kind of girl who once filled his heart. Gwendolyn Smith's window to escape Hugh Phelps is closing fast. Performing in speak-easies and underground clubs has left her mistrustful of most men, but the big fellow she plows into on her flight to the station seems safe enough to attach herself to for short term protection. Friendship unfolds, but Gwen hides behind lies, wishing she might deserve such a God-fearing man as Jacob, and Jacob’s pursuit of a perfect wife conflicts with his mounting concern for Gwen. Meanwhile, Hugh is catching up. For Jacob and Gwen, trapped in their pasts and misconceptions, the time for truth and love is running out.

Five years after the Great War… Holly Allen is a well-adjusted war widow with a knack for running the family press. She’s over the days of waiting for a white knight to ride in and sweep her away from her cares. Besides, if Hugh Phelps is a knight, he's certainly a black one—with his prison record, personal demons, and the ghosts of war that haunt him. When Holly hires Hugh, despite her reservations, it isn’t long before she sees the man he could really be, and as Hugh finds his niche at Allen’s Printing, he finds his lady boss equally appealing. Despite the attraction, however, Holly won’t let herself fall for a faithless man, and Hugh isn’t on gracious terms with God. Then, just when new beginnings seem possible, old heartaches from the war come calling. Now it might only be in letting go of everything dear that they both discover what real love is.