Rachel Kilkenny comes from Denver for a short stay at the Iowa farm she's inherited with her brother, Davie. She assumes they'll manage the homeplace together, and he and his family will move in. But nothing goes according to this simple plan. Her feisty sister-in-law delivers a shocking demand, and Davie avoids helping pack up the parents' possessions. Then, in the midst of a troubling week, Rachel meets a handsome bicycle shop owner who sets her thoughts spinning in a new direction. Will the future be completely different than anybody expected?

Paul Kiefer enjoyed a promising career at New Mexico University—until a murderer canceled the arrogant young man's plan to fast track to full professor. Shocked at the sight of her colleague's dead body, department head Eleanor Jarviss turns for comfort and aid to her daughter Bethany. The Jarviss Foundation's grants manager, Bethany has an amateur detective's knack for crime solving. When she awards a Foundation Scholarship to a student who dishes the dirt on the dead prof, Bethany gets drawn into the murder investigation. With Eleanor's help, she compiles a list of suspects close to Kiefer stunned but not saddened by the scheming academician's demise.

The discovery of human bones near a remote New Mexico mountain village sets a worried sister on a treacherous path to solve a murder. Bethany Jarviss fears her sister's fiancé killed the long-missing young woman. He was first engaged to her and swears he thought she left him to pursue a singing career. News of the murder swirls as the newly engaged couple get set to open their bed-and-breakfast inn right before Christmas. Bethany, who once solved the murder of a college girl, gives in to her sister's pleas to investigate this case. Soon she meets many locals besides her future brother-in-law who had motives for killing his beautiful, thieving, secretive first fiancée.