In 1870, Mariah Stover is left for dead and with no memory when the Deadeye Gang robs the stagecoach she's on, killing her father and brother. As she takes over her father's blacksmith business and attempts to move forward, the old-fashioned townspeople meet her new occupation with disdain.

Upon uncovering her tyrannical father’s malevolent plot to commit her to an asylum, Beth Rutledge fabricates a plan of her own. She will rescue her mother, who had already been sent to the asylum, and escape together on a wagon train heading west. Posing as sisters, Beth and her mother travel with the pioneers in hopes of making it to Idaho before the others start asking too many questions.

Beauty has been nothing but a curse to Penelope Snow. When she becomes a personal maid for a famous actress whose troupe is leaving Chicago to tour the West, she hides her figure beneath shapeless dresses and keeps her head down. But she still manages to attract the wrong attention, leaving her prospects in tatters—and her jealous mistress plotting her demise.

With their sharp engineering minds, Laura Stiles and her two sisters have been able to deal with their mother’s unfortunate choice in husband until they discovered his plans to marry each of them off to his lecherous friends. Now they must run away—far and fast—to find better matches to legally claim their portion of their father's lumber dynasty and seize control from their stepfather. During their escape, Laura befriends a mission group heading to serve the poor in California. She quickly volunteers herself and her sisters to join their efforts.

After years away, Astrid Nilsson has returned home to Colorado, hoping to become Fairplay’s second doctor...and to find healing for her reoccurring consumption. Spirited and independent, Astrid doesn’t want her illness to be a burden to those she loves, so she has resisted getting serious about any man.