Born on the wrong side of Sunset Mountain, Laurel Harper seems destined for a path of ambivalence. Her practical, hardworking father and controlling, manipulative mother are already in a turbulent marriage, and when Laurel is six-years-old, the marriage falls apart completely when a tragic accident injures her youngest brother, Del.
Laurel's mother blames her father for the accident and as a result, her parents never again express a trace of love for each other, trapping Laurel and her brothers in the darkness of broken dreams and dysfunctionality that never ends, even after her father's sudden death. Pursuing her own dreams, Laurel falls for David Hudson, a future medical student whose abrupt engagement announcement to another woman devastates her. Brokenhearted, she retreats to the mountain and, relying on her mother's vision and her father's pragmatism, struggles for independence and happiness while trying to prevent her family's self-destruction. When she returns to Sunset Valley five years later, she is not alone. Curly-haired Gena Renee Harper is with her, and David immediately suspects the little girl is his.
As Laurel and David meet again, they discover that the love two students once found during a tumultuous time may just be real after all.