Dr. Sue Ann Parrish, cherished by two men in her life only to lose both, has remained alone until she admits to loving Custer, the mountain dweller who befriended her in her sorrow and sees her through her greatest challenge, breast cancer. As she fights for her life, her daughter Betsy becomes ghostwriter for her mother's autobiography and thus learns the truth about her father.

When ghosts from the past arrive and turn her world upside down, Sue Ann must make a life-changing decision: stay with Custer or marry a man she thought lost to her years before. Dressed in an antique lace dress once worn by a pioneer woman, Sue Ann walks down the aisle, her eyes smiling at the two men waiting. Whose hand will she take? The Beartooth Mountains cast shadows of approval as a raven and an eagle dip their wings symbolically overhead.