Eden Rossiter is the owner of Spur Ranch, located thirty miles north of the small town of Friendly, Nevada. She is as strong and cautious as she is beautiful, struggling in a world of cattle runs and prairie dust where a spirited woman is not generally welcome. Eden is notorious in Friendly for having eluded a first-degree murder charge some years before, and she is also widely admired for not selling off the family ranch after her grandfather’s death. But now Eden is in real troubleDuke Depard, owner of the neighboring two-and-a-half-million-acre Diamond D Ranch, is ruthlessly determined to drive her out of business. Depard is too powerful an enemy for anyone to stand up to alone, and Eden’s only family is a ne’er-do-well brother, Vince, whose gambling habits make him unpredictable – and dangerous. Then a stranger drifts into Friendly. Kincade is a soft-spoken, ruggedly handsome man who takes up Eden’s cause and becomes her ally against Depard and his band of crooked ranchers. Their union is strictly business, and Eden, who deeply distrusts affairs of the heart, is determined to keep it that way. But Kincade has never felt for another woman the way he feels for Eden. As they struggle together through danger and adversity, Eden realizes the depths of Kincade’s devotion, and her reserve gives way to the untapped passions of her heart.