Publisher's Synopsis
An action-packed post-World War II story of prejudice, violence and love. After encouraging the post-war anti-German mindset to turn the community of Dibs against her, John Marston abandons his young war bride, Helga Heinke, leaving her to manage a ranch on Oklahoma's Western plains. With few friends, and needing help to continue operation of the ranch, she turns to her minister, Rev. Eli Steigner, who knows just the right man. Jake Sorrells seems an unlikely choice. Although miraculously having survived the Invasion of Normandy, he leaves the military hospital addicted to drugs and alcohol, and becomes a lethal force for clients incapable of rendering the violent justice that is his specialty. Helga is determined not only to save the ranch but, by employing her fashion design skills and her talent for organization, to become an asset to the community that has shunned her. Not long after Sorrells hires on at the ranch, he befriends Charlie Conn, a 15-year-old local boy who joins Helga and Sorrels in trying to make the ranch solvent. Through their efforts, the ranch begins to pay for itself, and Helga's bold new local fashion enterprise begins to flourish, endearing her to the community. When the haunting nightmares return and Sorrells relapses into alcohol addiction, Charlie and Helga support him. When harsh elements and evildoers threaten, they defend themselves and each other. Along the way Helga and Sorrells fall in love, but between them there is always the question of not if but when Jake Sorrells will one day throw his gear into the pickup and be gone.
