Old Bill, Farmersville's postmaster, losses his wife in a terrible fire everyone knows the Fenton's started. Left to raise his daughters alone, he struggles to keep them on the straight and narrow as they come of age. Cindy Lou, the youngest, finds herself torn between two men: Cory, a very successful, much older, friend of her father's and Jimmy Fenton, the son of her mother's killers - the town outcast. While her father's eyes and attention are focused on Cindy Lou, Esther, her older sister, takes comfort in the arms of another young man whose commitment to her is fickle and fleeting. What's a girl to do with the best catch in town is ready and willing to marry her? How can she resist the advances of the town outcast when the very sight of him makes her and her father tremble - for very different reasons? Will Cory, the owner of the general store, win her love or will she risk everything to be with a boy whose reputation could destroy her own?