Set in South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Minnesota, and California, the story opens with Holly Seashore Cooper asking herself why she is getting drunk in a Rapid City, South Dakota, hotel when she is supposed to be in Minneapolis as the lead in a play on opening night. The answer is that she could not say no to what may have been her mother's last request. On the same night, Holly encounters Michael Daniels, whom she jilted long ago after she went away to college. She hiccups. Her knees knock. Everything she says is stupid. Michael, coldly polite and seemingly uninterested, does not let on that Holly's mother phoned him to say Holly would be at the hotel on this night. Nothing that happens after the reunion can stop Holly from giving everything she's got, including a right hook to Michael's jaw, to prove that she never stopped loving him. While doing this she learns from a tattoo artist what courage is, from her son and daughter-in-law what real love is, and from Michael that every unsolvable problem has a solution and a man can't strip for a woman unless her legs are spread.