When Vella Givens learns three orphaned siblings are hiding in town and stealing to survive, she knows she must find and protect them from men who want to separate and adopt them out for cash.

But she fears Marshal Baird McKiernan and his lawman’s ethics would force him to do the legal thing and return the children to the orphan train they escaped from.

Unable to follow his dream of becoming a doctor, Baird wants to help—if only he can convince Vella to trust him to do what’s right for the children.

The orphans, Dewey, Jess and Nedra, have plans of their own. They want parents who will take all three of them, and Baird and Vella are the couple they choose. They’ll do anything they can to help them fall in love.

Gage Givens, who goes by the name Ridge, has lost his best friends in a buggy accident that appears to have been intentional. The couple leave behind their young daughter, five-year-old Bibi. As Bibi’s godfather, Ridge goes to the train depot to pick up her godmother, Honora Keane, who is expected to take the child home to Denver with her. To Ridge’s surprise, instead of stepping off the train, she comes from a flatcar driving an automobile, the first in the area.

He isn’t quite sure what to make of Honora. She’s single, a little flamboyant, a genuine individual who writes dime novels for a living, and a woman suffragist, God forbid. Despite everything he’s taken with her.

Cutthroat, Montana, and its citizens aren’t what Honora expected either. Not fond of children, Honora surprises herself by falling in love with her goddaughter at first sight. She’s enchanted with Montana’s beauty and not a little impressed by its marshal, Ridge Givens.

But Bibi is in danger. Her parents’ killer believes she might have seen him sawing the buggy’s axel the morning of the accident. If there’s a chance she can identify him, she must die.

Ridge sets up a plot to capture the man. Meanwhile, Bibi decides her Aunt Honora and Ridge would be perfect parents to replace her mama and papa, and she’s sure they love each other. Can she make them confess their feelings and marry before her parents’ killer gets to her?

Like any decent Montana cattle rancher, Connor Givens hates sheep, so when he learns squatters have settled on High Mountain Ranch with a flock of woollies, he’s determined to see them gone.

But he doesn’t count on the stunning black-haired beauty who owns the flock with her parents and brother.

Rosalina Camila Antonella DeLeon has good reason to distrust cattle ranchers, having lost her husband at their murderous hands. Yet, there’s something about Connor Givens that sets him apart from the others.

Can they find a way to set their differences aside and find love, or will the other sheep-hating ranchers, take the choice out of their hands?