In the spring of 1880, sixteen-year-old Emma Colson must flee her home in St. Louis, Missouri. Virtually an orphan, her father having died and her mentally unstable mother marrying her Uncle, Theodore, she has been beaten and abused by her adoptive uncle and finds herself pregnant with his child.

To stay means a lifetime of abuse and most likely death. Her only hope of sanctuary lies thousands of miles off in Skull Valley, Arizona Skull Valley, Arizona with a grandfather she has never even met. Young Emma Colson moves as fast as she can, discarding her life to an unknown future in the American West, but it may not be far enough to stay beyond the clutching hands of Theodore Colson, who wants to claim Emma and all she is for his own.

To escape Theodore’s torture, she enlists the aid of two well-travelled men, Silas and Hercules, Civil War veterans and no strangers to life on the road. Her two guides battle wits nonstop, but still find themselves acting as one when action is needed. As if these two guardians were not enough, they collect their long-time traveling companion, Ezra Bean, a Great Horned owl.

With Emma's uncle in dogged pursuit, the numbers add up against them as a laudanum-fueled ghost from Silas and Herc's past is bent on revenge for events while the men were imprisoned in the infamous Andersonville prison during the war.

The hunting party grows when Theodore hires Alexis Free, a detective for Liberty Investigations, owned by her father. It doesn’t take long for Alexis to discover Theodore's wicked intentions while she also gathers information on the man hunting Silas and Hercules. She struggles with her duty to her client, Theo, and her desire to help the young woman, Emma.

With the whole world on their heels, Emma and her men travel south down the Mississippi trying to stay one step ahead of both sides of the law while Silas and Emma wrestle with their growing attraction to each other.