The New Madrid Earthquake leveled seven states. Home and future destroyed, librarian Deborah Steele retreated to her isolated Indiana family farm and held on. It's been five years of desperate choices, but she and the women under contract to her have survived.

Her cautious hopes for recovery are upended by the sight of a worker's contract being casually used as a marker in a poker game. She's horrified to discover it's for the services of Joanna Davis, the love she has never forgotten. She acquires it without hesitation.

Joanna has lost none of her attraction or fire. Too late Deborah realizes that Joanna's intractable anger at the way contracts-including hers-are exploited in the name of survival threatens the future of the only home she has, the women who have trusted her, and especially her heart.