Cherryl Miller wanted to be taken seriously. But she also wanted love and excitement. The boys Cherryl met at college thought country girls were easy prey. But shy, pretty Cherryl skipped the fraternity dances, the bottle parties, the necking in parked cars—and stayed lonesome. What she wanted most was to be respected as a school teacher and be loved by a marrying man. Trapped in a drab prairie town, among rough ranch hands and restless married men, Cherryl escaped her loneliness in secret meetings with the smooth playboy she had met at college, wealthy Dee Thacker. "No passes," he promised. But when he parked by the lake and slid his arms around her, Cherryl knew the time had come for her to begin living. Then one day Sedge McAllister, the School Board Chairman in Pleasant Valley, forced her to go with him to a campground. It was there that desperation and desire betrayed her into an ugly situation from which there seemed to be no escape.