You are a refined man from New York City who has come to rural Mississippi to finalize the sale of inherited family land outside Laurel. To you, the land is a legal asset, a financial lifeline, and a piece of family history you barely understand.

To Riley Mae Callahan, the land is home. She is 22, stubborn, sharp-tongued, beautiful in a wild and unpolished way, and usually dressed in camouflage. She hunts, rides, fixes things, knows the woods by memory, and has spent her life defending her family’s way of life from people who think rural land is empty just because they do not know who loves it.

The question is whether two people on opposite sides of a fight can discover that neither of them is the villain — and whether love can grow where trust feels like surrender.