When Tom's family finds itself struggling at the start of another harsh winter on the Kansas prairie, Tom has no choice but to take up a cowhand position at the Parsons ranch.  The cowboy life isn't easy, but Tom's family needs the money and he craves the freedom it promises.

Evie Parsons has always been a rancher at heart, even though ranching is considered man's work.  She's planning to have her own land and herd so she'll be able to choose her own path, even if it's one her parents don't support.

Narrated in interchanging voices, this sequel to Debra Seely's critically hailed first novel, Grasslands, tells the exciting story of Tom's and Evie's struggles for love and freedom on the open frontier.

The story begins four years after Grasslands. After a fight with his father and stepmother, Tom leaves home to work for the Parsons ranch. He falls in love with Evie Parsons. Raised with a great deal of freedom on the ranch, Evie has become worried at how her choices have narrowed as she’s grown up: she can marry a rancher’s son or teach school. But she can’t help but have feelings for Tom. A terrible January blizzard wipes out a good part of the cattle herds in the country, and the ranch organizes an early roundup to see what the losses are. Evie, worried about her own cattle, determines to go on the roundup, despite her family’s objection that girls don’t go on roundups. Along the way, both Tom and Evie learn more about what it’s like to be a boy or girl in those times.

This story is based in part on the story of my great-grandparents, but it’s mostly made up. My great-great grandfather really was a Kansas cattle rancher, though, and he lived in a beautiful big house like the one in the story. It’s still standing today.