Trapped by her alcoholic, abusive father, Sophia Carpenter longs to escape her life of drudgery on her father's dirt farm in Clark Springs, Georgia. Making matters worse, her father's scared off every man who tried to call on her. She longs for freedom, but with the Civil War raging, even fewer men are available to fulfill her dreams—unless a soldier landed in her lap.

Conscripted into a war he never wanted to fight, Lucas Grady is tired of battle and refuses to lay his life down for a lost cause. After a musket ball tears through his leg, he deserts from the ambulance wagon rather than risk a field surgeon's saw. He barely makes it to Sophia's farm before collapsing.

The wounded soldier's arrival seems like a dream come true, but first she must save him from his injuries—and her father. As forbidden attraction blooms between them, they will have to struggle to survive. Can their love overcome so many obstacles or will they become another casualty of the War Between the States?