Carrie Wiggins is as shy as she is stunningly beautiful. But the devastating secret that shattered her girlhood has left her terrified of the very love she desperately longs for. Only in the wild beauty of the mountains does she feel safe from the feelings she stirs in men and the cruel mockery of Wayne's Crossing's villagers.

Handsome, aristocratic Tyler Wilkes had turned his back on social privilege and professional honors to set up a medical practice in the rural turn-of-the-century town of Wayne's Crossing, Pennsylvania. There, serving those who need him the most, he hopes to forget the bitter memories and weariness that haunt his days.

Chance brings this sophisticated doctor and this fawn-like mountain girl together. But something as strong as fate breaks through the barriers of birth and breeding, pride and fear, which have kept them apart...as each seeks to heal the other's wounds with a passion neither can deny and all the odds against them cannot defeat...