"Traveling the Santa Fe Trail on a botanical exploration, Linnea Newberry longs to be taken seriously by the other members of the expedition. When she is rescued from an accident by Flynn McQuaid, her grandfather hires him to act as Linnea's bodyguard, and Flynn soon finds himself in the greatest danger of all-falling for a woman he's determined not to love"--

Marianne Neumann takes a job as a placing agent with the Children's Aid Society in hopes of finding her younger sister. In 1858 New York she finds it's not always easy to offer children a better life. Former schoolteacher Andrew Brady suffers from a grief that won't go away-- and keeps hidden a secret from his past. As the two team up to place orphans across Illinois, a shocking tragedy threatens their work-- and changes one of their lives forever....