After narrowly escaping death in Canada's Lake Laberge, the half-drowned Miranda Colton is thrown upon the mercy of Thomas "Teddy" Davenport, a botanist intent on finishing a book about plant vegetation, and determined not to be diverted by romance. Just a few miles away, Karen Ivankov; her husband, Adrik; and Miranda's very pregnant sister-in-law, Grace Colton, struggle to live through the chilling Yukon winter in only a tent. They grieve for Miranda, whom they believe is dead. Meanwhile, Grace's husband, Peter, regrets his past treatment of the wife he has given up for lost, unaware that she is alive and about to make him a father.
