Fleeing Boston, mail order bride Madeline Barstow hopes that her husband-to-be will provide her a comfortable, respectable life, far away from the prying eyes and gossip of her socialite peers. But when she steps off the train in Helena, Montana, she is disheartened to find a stranger waiting for her, instead of her fiance. Widower Clay Porter is tired of the constant attempts of his family and friends to match him up. He wants only to be left alone, and spends his days off transporting cargo and passengers, to earn money so he can someday buy the butcher shop he works in. But when he realizes the woman he's transporting to Croft Ranch is completely in the dark about her fiance's character, he finds himself risking his own dream - and even his life - to persuade the uppity woman that she's making a mistake.