When Courtney Powell is orphaned at seventeen, she loses everything: her parents, her friends, the basic security she's always known. Drowning under debilitating sorrow, she moves to St. Louis to live with her newly widowed godmother. From the beginning, the woman's grown children accept her into their family . . . but there's something about the middle brother that causes an inexplicable wariness within her.

Time goes by as Courtney struggles to overcome her grief. When she finally emerges some years later, it becomes apparent that somewhere along the way, without her input and much to her anxiety, she's become Nick Rule's exclusive property.