# of pages: 196 pages

Widowed at nineteen, Leah Worth is challenged with being 'boss lady' on the Diamond C, a large cattle ranch in the Nebraska Sandhills. Faced with motherhood without the husband she so deeply loved, while contending with the dangers and entanglements of the widespread ranch community, she is forced to go through the motions of living despite her broken heart.

When tall, broad-shouldered Louis Drake comes into her life, sharing a similar view on romance and remarriage, they become close friends. They face the dangerous challenges that confront first one and then the other. During the process, Leah discovers while going through the 'motions', she has been living all along, and a rich past can lead to a new love and an amazing future.

LEAH CLAYBORN is seventeen, recently orphaned after having been raised in a small college town in Ohio. She is coming to live with an uncle, the mysterious black sheep of the family. The story opens upon her arrival in Horse Flats, the isolated cowtown some ten miles from her uncle’s cattle ranch. She is met by TY WORTH, a thirty year old ranching neighbor of her uncle who has been asked “to gather up and drop off” the little niece.
 
This tall, lean cowman shows none of the symptoms Leah’s honey blond hair and wide-set brown eyes customarily create upon unsuspecting young men.

SIMON CLAYBORN, the uncle, proves to be a crusty, middle-aged man apprehensive at including a young female in his rough, simple life style. Determined, Leah settles in. She cleans house and reinstates such items long banished to the store rooms as carpets and bed sheets, turning the barren ranch house into a home.

Leah becomes acquainted with the ranch crew. There is FROG, the cook, a homely, friendly fellow she can depend on. HENRY is a cantankerous old man who has been at the ranch for eons. JAKE, is his uncivil son. PEACHES is a black cowboy whose parents homestead in a nearby black community. MOON and BUCK is a pair of amiable buddies who hail from Texas.

Leah meets the other members of the far-flung community. She makes friends but also makes the frightening discovery that she has an unknown enemy or enemies making attempts on her life.

Inadvertently, Leah creates more problems when she rescues NETTIE KRUPER, a crippled girl whose two sisters have been forced by their father into prostitution. Nettie comes to work at the ranch and becomes a loyal friend.

In the months that follow, prairie fire, accidents, injuries and gunfights lead these characters through a perilous journey of adventure and chaotic emotions. Leah proves to be a survivor who finds love and womanhood at the end of the story.