Cousins Jesse, Rance and Keegan are the new generation of McKettricks. Rance and Keegan have married in recent years and even more recently been widowed and divorced respectively. They are the responsible ones at the helm of the family business, McKettrickCo, while Jesse (with a one week Vegas wedding to his name) spends his days playing cowboy and his evenings playing poker. He won a tournament the previous year which enabled him to purchase 500 acres of land adjacent to the family spread when the State of Arizona decided not to develop it into a park. He intends to keep it as a buffer for native wildlife from people encroaching with housing developers.

Enter gorgeous Cheyenne Bridges. She is returning to the small town of Indian Rock, near Flagstaff because the San Diego real estate developer she works for wants her to persuade Jesse to sell off his new acquisition so they can turn it into condoland. Her mother and disabled brother return from Phoenix at the same time because her brother is well enough to leave rehab after a devastating ATV accident that has left him a paraplegic and they can’t afford to live anywhere but the dumpy family trailer home on the wrong side of the tracks that they inherited from Cheyenne’s grandmother.

When she was a teen, Cheyenne went out with Jesse a couple of times and worshiped the ground he walked on; now she wants to rip it out from under his feet. He barely remembers the girl she was and is afraid that if Cheyenne plays her cards right, he’ll give her the moon as well as the 500 acres.

It is a fun romance with caring human beings without getting entirely sappy. There’s an element of thrill when a couple of card players feel like Jesse cheated them at the poker table and want their money back by extracting it from his flesh, and oh don’t forget that wife from Jesse’s past because Cheyenne’s demanding boss, Nigel has dug her out of the woodwork and hopes to use her as a bargaining chip to pressure Jesse into making the deal.