BJ Hathaway is a busy anthropologist teaching in New Mexico. Unexpectedly she inherits an old house on the St. Marks River and an ecological restoration project. This forces her to return home to North Florida. Upon her return, she enters into the work of restoration, resumes old friendships, and works on unresolved relationships from her past. In the process, she encounters dangers she did not know were there. As she begins to re-establish herself in North Florida and work on the conservation project, she is met with surprising resistance from some resentful members of the Board. An angry person from her past, spurned in her youth, threatens both the project and her life. She must defeat her nemesis or lose all. In the process, she finds love in the arms of a man she once knew but never forgot.