Grace Freeport is not who she says she is. As a single schoolmarm in frontier Nebraska she maintains a pen-pal romance with Lincoln attorney Billy Prescott. When Billy returns to Omaha for his mother's funeral he is surprised to find this warm, wonderful woman is strangely reserved.
Billy Prescott is the son of the town drunk and a overworked mother. All his life he's struggled to overcome feelings of shame about his father and guilt about his mother's sacrifices for her only child. Success as an attorney in Lincoln has a price to pay. Billy is missing something in life. He suspects it may be Grace.
When a blizzard strikes during the school day Grace's heroics save the children and the townspeople rally around her. She is shy but pleased about the attention and begins to open up to some of the women. A vindictive citizen accuses her of misrepresentation. She stands to lose her position and security as the town's teacher.
Billy is stunned when he receives a letter from Grace that reveals who she really is-a widow and mother of a still-born child. Feeling deceived he becomes suspicious about her past in a small Nebraska town. He sets out to investigate the truth.
While Grace struggles to defend herself and a few townspeople rally around her, Billy is making discoveries about her that even she didn't know. A desperate doctor has delivered her daughter, adopted her as his own, then perishes. Only one person, a calculating nurse, knows of the whereabouts of the child. It is up to Billy to find Faith, and reunite her with Grace. Now if he could just convince Grace to believe in him again...and the future that was meant to be in Lesson's Learned.