Luke Jackson, a volunteer soldier based in Santa Fe, is eager to return home to San Antonio, Texas. Weary from the war and healing from a serious injury, he is given one last assignment before his discharge—to escort the daughter of a wealthy businessman to Las Vegas in the New Mexico Territory. Luke is stunned to discover that not only does he have to escort the woman and her chaperone, but four young orphans as well.Melanie Faraday has always been an obedient daughter, but she is dismayed to learn her widowed father has brought her to Santa Fe to marry the son of one of his business partners. Unprepared for marriage to a stranger, but unwilling to go against her father, she feels her future is doomed until she meets four abandoned Mexican children shortly after her arrival in Santa Fe. She vows to find them a home and, in a desperate attempt to avoid her impending marriage, she uses her father’s connections to secure an escort for her to take the children to an orphanage in Las Vegas, unbeknownst to her father.During the journey the group is hampered with thunderstorms, which delays their travels but gives Luke and Melanie much time to not only fall in love with each other, but to fall in love with the children as well.