Following a desperate letter from her sister, Jessida Wilcox travels from her cozy home in Kansas to Pell's Valley, Oregon, where she is surrounded by sagebrush, bitter winds, and blizzards-and heartbreak as she finds Abby dead and her baby orphaned. Cal Rutledge, the cowboy who buried Abby and saved the baby's life, is drawn to the spirited Jess. She is turning the sleepy town upside down with talk of a Christmas program, a church, a school, and most important, a fight for custody of the baby. But does Jess have room in her ambitions for a simple cowboy? Is the Lord's plan for Cal and Jess to share a sagebrush Christmas, then part ways? Or could he have a life in store for them that surpasses all they thought the desert could provide?