Coral Wood joins her grandfather on his ranch in Grand Valley, California where she spent her happy childhood summers. As the new high school social studies teacher she finds her students in the middle of a fight between the local ranchers and a city club on the coast, which wants to make Grand Valley a public park.
After meeting Mac Maclane, the very attractive biology teacher who is leading the landowners, she is torn between wanting to lead him to her bed and wanting to help him save her grandfather's ranch.
A powerful man from the east coast offers the ranchers a third option, tempers flare, and violence threatens from both sides until a college professor is found dead on one of the ranches, the victim of a savage killer.
Coral shows her students how to have their say on the proposed park while she and Mac pursue the killer. In spite of their best efforts to keep the peace Coral can feel a faceless evil closing in on them.