Jessie is a girl who lives in the east with an autocratic father determined to marry her off to someone he deems suitable. Her two sisters he's already married off to men who work them to death. Worse of all the partners do not love each other. Jessie and her friend Annabelle cannot abide lives decided for them. they want love to cement their futures. So they head west on a train and then a stagecoach to the small town of Valentine, Wyoming. On the train Belle, to her surprise, meets the love of her life in a most unusual way. The three travel on to Valentine where Belle's fiance fortuitously lives. There Jessie meets the sheriff, James Gallagher who wants no part of Jessie. Yet he seems to be continuously helping her or pulling her out of scrapes. Will this man of past violence be able to resist a woman as tough minded as he is?