1892 – Tennessee
Choosing to participate in a matrimonial agency as a mail-order bride, Magnolia proceeds methodically and uses her skills as a cook to create the perfect recipe for a husband.
A successful businessman, the idea of putting another person’s needs in front of his own is foreign. He’s shocked when a young cook from an orphanage intrigues him. Can he measure up?
1890s – Texas
Twenty-two-year-old Garnet Adams longs to marry and have a houseful of children. Forced to support her widowed mother, she embraces her role as a teacher, although the Carrie Town board of education’s rules for female teachers leave no opportunity for a social life. She contents herself playing the violin at church.
Tall, bearded, and rough around the edges, Deputy Noah Scott would rather hunt than socialize. Garnet thinks he’s a rude, insensitive drifter, and Noah’s sure the last person he’d want to court is a schoolmarm–especially with her unladylike sneeze. As the needs of her students bring them together, opposites seem to attract until a certain Christmas present derails their future.
