The impact of the Civil War on lovers. Inman is not the man he used to be, as wounded in battle he slowly makes his way home to North Carolina. His sweetheart, Ada, too has changed, no longer a flighty belle but a hard-working farm woman. Will love be the same?

Lilly Martin is racing from an oncoming blizzard when she skids into a hiker. Taking the injured man to a remote cabin, she discovers he is the handsome but shady Ben Tierney, with whom she flirted during the previous summer. Five women have recently disappeared from the area, and Ben is the primary suspect; but as the storm intensifies and the roads become impassable, Lilly finds herself with nowhere to go and only Ben to keep her company.