A bright, adventurous young woman dreams of travelling to the Western frontier, but in the late 1800s, young women were expected to be neither bright nor adventurous. Despite the contentedness she sees in her mother, whom she knows is spanked by her father when need be, Mary Rose thinks she's looking for independence, and the opposite of what her parents have. But heroes come in strange packages out West, and she's not long there before a rough-seeming package finds reason to put her over his knee. Once she realizes he was right, she's faced with a strange compulsion for someone (and something) she thought she'd never want in her life...
