As budding anthropologist, Carly Brumley, enters her junior year in high school, she continues the slow process of healing from the loss of her beloved little brother, Cord. She employs a big gray Quarter Horse, raised and broken by her uncle, to help her regain her passion for riding. Carly's artistic boyfriend, Danny O'Hara, carefully pushes his way, along with his secret, into the center of Carly's world.