Madeline Denham realizes something doesn't add up. More than with her siblings, her parents are very careful about whom they allow to socialize with her. As often as she is complimented on her appearance, there are those who study her as if they know something she doesn't. She suspects her family is hiding something. Approaching her twenty-second birthday, she is painfully aware she has never been courted and never been kissed.

After graduating from normal college, she returns home to Knights Ferry while she seeks a teaching position. Much to her dismay, during a community social, a well-dressed man she's never met before asks her to dance and then forces a kiss upon her. Rather than being flattered, she feels ruined.
After inheriting his mother's Angel's Creek property in Calaveras County, James Hennessy finds growing fruit trees and a small table grape vineyard competes with his love of practicing law. He spends much of his time representing farmers in a cause important to his own interests-stopping the hydraulic mining that is clogging the Valley's rivers and streams that provide the water the farmers need to irrigate their crops. At a dance, he plans to meet with a delightful woman he met previously on the train where he learned she is seeking a teaching position. When he realizes she is the object of unwanted attention, he steps forward to rescue her.

Madeline hires James to uncover the secrets that plague her. However, will what they learn drive him away? Fortunately, she has two young twin brothers, who, like their oldest brother, want to become cowboys. For now, they'll settle for corralling a good husband for their big sister, even if they have to rope and hogtie Madeline and James to get them to the altar.