When Becky Hamilton is orphaned at the tender age of fourteen, she comes to live with her aunt in Waco and begins work cooking and cleaning for the town’s brooding young sheriff. Mesmerized immediately with his raw masculinity and sinewy strength, her fascination turns to love as the years pass and his honest integrity is revealed.

Jake Cooper manages to ignore his pretty, little orphaned housekeeper for three long years. But when she begins a subtle metamorphosis from girl to woman, he can’t control his consuming need for her any longer. It has been his job to protect the town all these years, but who will protect her from him?