Saguaro Express is an aviation smuggling adventure and romance set in Arizona and Mexico of 1971. Timothy Leary said, "Turn on, tune in, drop out." But now it is 1971, the summer of love is long past and even the Beatles have broken up. Neil Burton and his wife Gina dropped out in the late sixties and are trying to re-enter the establishment. He had a very successful career with a software company before dropping out but now they are broke and their marriage is rocky. They both have new jobs and things are looking up until four friends from Neil's past visit him in Tucson, Arizona. They have a brief case of money and offer to buy him an airplane if he will recover four hundred keys of marijuana from a plane wrecked deep in the mountains of Mexico. He is a licensed pilot and always wanted an airplane so the offer tempts him but he turns it down. Kelly, one of the visitors and six years younger than Neil, had a teenage crush on him. He was always protective of her like a big brother to a little sister but now the age difference is not so significant and the attraction is no longer that of siblings. Kelly is a student pilot and is determined to buy the airplane and recover the contraband herself when Neil refuses. Fooling only himself, Neil plans to help Kelly only enough to keep her from crashing into a mountain side.