On the eve of her wedding to Clay Carpenter, MaryAnn Poole's world collapses when she is told that her fiancé might be her half-brother. Suspicious that she might be pregnant, she leaves her parents' mansion for Sacramento's Riverfront District. The year is 1901, when women living alone are looked upon with suspicion. Two years later, she is brutally molested; her experience and her fear that the man will return drive her into a platonic marriage with her employer's paraplegic son, Henry Collins. Ultimately, Clay and MaryAnn meet at a dinner party; he is with his fiancée and she is alone. Will this chance meeting allow them to find each other again?