Kendra Carew is a schoolteacher and she runs her life the way she runs her classroom; routines, boundaries, calm and courteous are the rules. She knows everything there is to know within the sheltering walls of her small world. Sent out of her safe and small world to retrieve a wayward brother, she finds out just how little she knows about the world at large, and about herself. Whit Southwell is an enigma to everyone; despite derogatory nicknames which suggest that coworkers and cohorts know him well, he's unpredictable and unstoppable. When confronted with an obstacle he either finds a way around it, or busts right through it - and Kendra just became an obstacle.