Seventeen-year-old Jackie Gates is more accustomed to wearing designer clothing and possessing expensive gadgets and electronics than wondering how she'll eat and pay next month's rent. But she knows that running away and leaving Fort Worth, Texas-and her former life behind-is what she needs to do. Life in Castlewood, Ontario, is tough, but her goal of earning the local scholarship to veterinary school is in her sights. Her passion for horses and her need to make money lead her to a much-needed job as a farmhand at Starcross Farms. It's here she befriends Dusty Houghton, a local boy struggling with school and his parents' recent divorce. She also finds herself face-to-face with the very reason she ran away-her horse, Texas. After one year of being mistreated and abused, Texas is far from being the horse she used to know. Certain she can mend the damage of his former abuse, she struggles to keep the balance of her new life from tipping into the old one. Just when she's close to finding a solution to keeping the job she needs, the horse she loves, and the boy she has grown too close to, a tragic accident threatens it all. The accident jeopardizes not only her life but adds to the risk of uncovering secrets-and the unasked questions from her past.