Annie Smith lived her socialite life in her New York townhouse, financially cared for by her deceased father’s estate as managed by her older brother, Charles. But Annie wanted more. Charles' wife, Charlotte also wanted more. She wanted the money Charles was wasting on his sister to be hers and she devised a cunning plan. Billy Jones had left his family to chase the promise of gold out West. But now he was a trapper, living in the mountains, a far cry from the likes of whom his sister Charlotte associated with on the East coast. It was perfect for her plan. Grant Miller had pulled himself up by the bootstraps from erstwhile orphan to a successful rancher in Oregon. When he saw the young lady, alone and bewildered, disembarking from the stagecoach at the fort, he knew what was missing from what he had always believed was a satisfactory life. He felt a compulsion to protect her. But she was promised to another. To a character, he knew to be a far cry from what she was led to believe in their correspondence. Could love find a way to show it’s face from a deceitful arrangement in a strange and foreboding land?