Maggie McQuaid missed her chance to be a bride and resolved to be a spinster. Finding herself in charge of solving her sister's sudden widowhood and homelessness dilemma, she joins a missionaries' wagon train to relocate them both out west. Is there a better life waiting for her and her grieving sister? Alfie Jones, a confirmed bachelor out of necessity, has scored an excellent opportunity to make a name for himself with the university expedition along the North Platte River. The Cretaceous era geological find is a once-in-a-lifetime chance and he cannot be distracted by anything or anyone. Besides, as an understudy to Professor Thomas Young, he can barely make it on his own. When these two lonely souls meet, fate has other plans for the outcropping of love and marriage. Will their stubborn, determined personalities remain an impenetrable layer between their happy ever after and a life of solitude?