Orphaned at fourteen, Hector “Heck” Martin heads west, determined to see the far country and make a man of himself. Along the way, he falls in love with bold and beautiful Hope Mullen. But Heck is too young and poor to marry, so he heads west again. During a three-year journey, Heck crosses thousands of miles, becomes a bareknuckle boxer, a mountain man, and an Indian fighter, and meets the likes of Kit Carson and Jim Bridger as he explores the gorgeous and deadly frontier.

Fifteen-year-old Joe Beck wasn’t listening as the minister eulogized his uncle but was already planning on what he would have to do as soon as they returned to the Quimby farm. He wasn’t welcome there even before his uncle had died and knew that his cousin John would soon order him to leave. While he had had a basic idea of where he would go after he left the farm, he didn’t know what he would do with the rest of his life.

When Deacon Bader reaches the point where he realizes that there has to be more to life than the one he’s living, he convinces his business partner, Forrest Russo, to set out on a journey. Upon arriving in Cheyenne and learning that a friend of theirs from their days in the cavalry is accused of murder, the pair come to William’s aid to prove him innocent. Deacon also attempts to charm Sage, a local mercantile proprietor tending to a sister with a troubled past. Suspecting that there’s a lot more to Laura’s story than has been told, Deacon is determined to get to the truth of the matter.

After the final battle of the Civil War, Confederate Sergeant Travis Kane rode his Yankee horse away from Palmito Ranch to return to his ranch in Uvalde County. As he began the two-hundred-and-fifty-mile ride across West Texas, Travis was grateful for surviving the long, bloody war without being wounded. But now that the fighting was over, his biggest concern was for his young wife because he hadn’t received a letter from Lillian in almost two years.

"Doc" Hayes had experienced enough tragedy for several lifetimes, but he thought he had finally found his sanctuary amidst the rugged beauty of the Guadalupe mountain range. Together with his friend and business partner, Conor Byrne, a West Point graduate with a taste for adventure, Doc was the center of what he hoped would be a burgeoning frontier settlement. With the arrival of Kathleen Ryan, a young woman cloaked in secrets, unexpected trouble soon follows. And trouble often seems to have a way of begetting even more trouble.