When Sergeant Rubi Wesson reports to Hurlburt Field for her abrupt discharge, the Air Force base is a ghost-town because her wing has been deployed to Grenada. She has been offered a hardship discharge because several people in her family have been killed in a car accident. But one reason Rubi wants to leave is that she is in love with a lieutenant, fraternization forbidden by military regulations.
Rubi recalls her early days with Flynn Fletcher in 1979, when he was a cadet and she was an enlisted young woman who worked at the Cadet Chapel at the Air Force Academy. . Flynn manipulates Rubi into dancing with another cadet named Griff, causing further conflict in the couple's relationship. Although Rubi loves him, she soon ends the romance.
She resumes contact with Flynn, an elusive and noncommittal KC-135 "tanker" pilot. The two continue to be close friends after their breakup, but Rubi encounters a series of tragedies while Flynn is deployed. To meet safety needs that arose from a series of neighborhood murders, she settled by marrying someone else.
After 9/11, Rubi hears a news report about Flynn's unit being on their way to Afghanistan. She conducts an Internet search to learn more, only to find that Flynn's plane crashed three years earlier. A few years later, she leaves her abusive husband, but nightmares about Flynn haunt her. Along the way, Rubi has become both a teacher and a rehabilitation counselor. As a counselor she has helped others who have her disability, a cranial nerve disorder called trigeminal neuralgia. The pain it inflicts is so severe that it is nicknamed "the suicide disease."
In her quest for more information about Flynn's fatal plane crash, she decides to contact a retired Air Force pilot who graduated from the Academy with Flynn, Griff Sorrentino. When she finds him online, she learns Griff is widowed. Rubi's buried feelings for Griff rush back as she remembers that he was her what if. Griff was engaged when Rubi knew him at Hurlburt Field, but she felt they might have had potential as a couple had he been available. Fear of rejection stops her from contacting him.
After intermittent suffering from a painful cranial nerve disorder, Rubi courageously has surgery on her brainstem. The risky procedure is a success, and she can move forward with her life. She sends Griff an online friend request.
As though there has been no time or distance between them, love blossoms. Griff shares some details about the cause of Flynn's death, and Rubi is relieved he died a hero. Rubi and Griff discuss marriage, but Griff's three adopted children fail to show when they are scheduled to meet her. In the meantime, she is offered a tempting promotion that would give her more financial security.
Griff's children continue to reject Rubi, creating a ghastly scene. The next day, she has a request from her neurosurgeon for a video chat. The doctor has received a grant to help people who have trigeminal neuralgia. He offers Rubi her dream job, counseling patients. Meanwhile, Griff's three teens reveal to him the cause of their conflict and want to meet with Rubi. She forgives them. Griff proposes to her on a street called Sky Kiss. He encourages Rubi to take her dream job, promising her that they can work through the issues of part-time separation. Rubi believes in him and says yes.
Four years later, they attend Griff's class reunion at the Air Force Academy. Seated between her husband and Flynn's college roommate, she attends a memorial service for Flynn and other fallen classmates. After the ceremony, the Thunderbirds fly over with a plane missing from their formation, symbolizing a departed crew member. While Griff holds her left hand, kisses the fingertips of her right hand and blows a kiss into the sky.