Buffalo Valley, North Dakota, has found a new life. People have started moving here--people like Lindsay Snyder who came for one year to work as a teacher and stayed, marrying local farmer Gage Sinclair. Now Lindsay's best friend Maddy Washburn has decided to pull up stakes and join her in Buffalo Valley, hoping for the same kind of contentment and love. Jeb McKenna is a rancher, a man who's learned to endure, as the Dakota earth endures. He's raising bison and, by choice, lives a solitary life. Maddy, unafraid and openhearted, is drawn to Jeb, but he rejects her overtures. Then one of North Dakota's deadly storms throws them together. These few days and nights bring unexpected consequences for Maddy and Jeb, consequences that, in one way or another, affect everyone in Buffalo Valley.