High school dropout Honey Belle Garrett has never thought of herself as poor white trash--just poor. In the summer of 1964, her world changes forever when sinfully sexy Tripp Hartwell III offers her a ride in his convertible. Then, unbeknownst to Tripp, dire threats from his father force Honey Belle and her family out of town and into silence. Hidden in another state, Honey Belle determines, successfully, to make something of herself, but she keeps a scrapbook of news clippings about the young man she had to leave behind. Seventeen years later Tripp is not only a lawyer like his father but a Vietnam war hero and a United States senator. Before anyone can question the strong resemblance between him and a new congressional page, Honey Belle has to tell him the truth. And he must come to terms with the knowledge that he has a son by the woman who stole his heart and then mysteriously disappeared.