Alaina Lund is angry at the new hired man. Until now, she has been her father's right hand in the orchards, and she would be happy to spend forever in the trees with her adoring father. But now her emotionally distant mother says it's time for the eighteen-year-old to learn the duties and boundaries of a woman of the 1910's and Alaina's mother is forcing the issue with her husband. Nephi Erickson is the quiet Mormon who has been hired to help Samuel Lund work his fruit farm in the California Sierras. But soon the beliefs of this unassuming outsider will begin to unravel the lives of the Lund family and Alaina must struggle against the duplicity of one she believes she can rely on. Perhaps Nephi can help her get what she so desperately needs.