Rich, beautiful, willful, and impetuous, Katie had run away with Roger, a man who left her scarred physically and emotionally and with newborn Susie. When Katie returned to her parents' home a divorcée, she brought scandal to her family. Two years later, shunned in Coeur d'Alene and desperate to be free of her parents' constraints, Katie knew her only escape was a husband, but men only wanted her money. Katie convinced her brothers, Nate and Hans Erikson, to arrange a decent marriage for her. However, only one man, the local druggist Alan Dixon, was willing to marry her and adopt Susie without a financial settlement, so Emily begrudgingly accepted him. However, Alan expected Emily and Susie to live in the small apartment over his store while he saved to build a house rather than the large house and servants that Emily was willing to pay for. While Emily struggled to be the kind of wife she thought Alan wanted, he struggled to accept the kind of wife Emily needed to be. Would her past improprieties catch up with her? Could this marriage work?