CALLA VAUGHN has spent the last three years desperately trying to get her life in order so that she can go back to culinary school. No matter how hard she works, though, she feels like she is just treading water and can't see any way out of the hole dug for her by a con artist who stole her identity. When flowers she sends to her best friend with a dinner invitation accidentally get delivered to IAN JONES, she decides to cook him the best meal he's ever had. By the time she admits that the flowers were never for him, he is as convinced as she is that God orchestrated the mistake in the first place. All that's left is to tell him the dark secret about her father's widow. She waits a little too long, though, and is carted off to jail for questioning on felony charges before she gets a chance. Will Ian understand her situation, or will the deception surrounding Calla destroy any trust he has in her?

Valerie Flynn grew up with the Dixon brothers, never differentiating one more than the other. When she leaves for college, she puts Atlanta and her childhood behind her, ready to make a life for herself somewhere else. An abusive relationship almost destroys her physically and emotionally, and manages to wipe out her relationship with God. Since boyhood days, Brad Dixon has always carried a flame for Valerie Her engagement to another man shattered his dreams. When she comes home, battered and bruised, recovering from a nearly fatal relationship, he prays God will use him to help her heal. Valerie returns to Atlanta seeking a fresh start, but she finds herself in a strange place. Not only is Brad now her boss, she starts to develop feelings for him. Is it possible she can overcome the past and open herself up to another relationship, or did the damage done to her body and soul permanently take away any chance of happiness and love?

MADELINE VISCOLLI finds herself on the Gulf shores of Alabama, where she takes part in a graduate program to earn her MBA. On her first day there, she meets JOE WESTCOTT, team leader for a campus ministry. Despite a mutual attraction, Joe's personal rule of no romance with any student keeps any kind of deep relationship from developing. Joe has no desire to have a relationship with anyone, ever, anyway. He left a life of luxury and his family's business behind to live alone on a sailboat and serve in ministry. Then Madeline walks into the auditorium the week school starts and Joe suspects his personal rules might not apply to this graduate student. That is, until he discovers Madeline is one of the Viscollis, and that her destiny lay in running her father's massive corporation. Having rejected wealth and all its trappings since childhood, Joe finds himself falling for the vivacious sapphire-eyed beauty. Madeline knows she loves Joe, but is not willing to throw away her destiny of taking over at the helm of Viscolli Enterprises. A Christmas Eve funeral washes all Joe's plans away. Will their love succomb to the rising tide caused by their differences in lifestyles, or will raging seas calm and allow them to sail off into the sunset?