Years after graduating from college and moving to another state, Bill Ross is offered a job by his former roommate and comrade brother, Henry "Bo" Horton. After long consideration, Ross accepts the engineering job offer and moves from the harsh, cold Midwest winters to the sunny Southwest where he becomes personally involved in the small, family-owned steelmaking business. An in-house, overt scheme to extract money from the corporation shakes its very foundation and future, making outsider Ross's decision to remain an employee uncertain. A court ordered leadership revision changes the company's business direction as Ross guides Horton Steel to an industry-leading position. It's during this pressure-mounted time that he loses the love of his life, Bo's sister Jennifer Horton, to another man. Later, after a love affair with an older woman, Ross becomes a suspect in her murder, and gathering of hard facts is required to try to prove his innocence. The murder raises the question, Where does he go from there? A dreadful turn of events in her marriage brings Jennifer Horton back into Ross's life and raises personal issues for him again.