1877. Texas Ranger Jake Fontaine wants revenge for his brother’s murder. After trailing outlaw Grizzly Duvall to Kansas, Jake is caught in an ambush and runaway Kat Collins rescues him. He figures he owes her, but he didn’t expect to escort her to St. Joseph, Missouri, or to promise her the reward the man he’s vowed to kill. Yet his conscience won’t allow him to leave any woman alone on the trail.

In a cruel twist, the outlaw is supposedly killed when the boilers aboard a steamboat explode, sinking the vessel.

Kat’s menacing kinfolk catch up with them, and a hangman’s noose over Jake’s head convinces him to marry Kat. The couple agrees to pursue an annulment, but a night together changes everything. Kat tries to look past Jake’s cynical views, …show more content…
Two years later, the agent locates her in St. Louis, albeit now Jake lives on his grandfather’s ranch. He’s also pursued a divorce for abandonment in preparation to propose to a local woman Angela McAllister. Convinced Kat is a distant memory, and a bitter one at that, he sends his grandfather Lucky “Chance” Davenport to St. Louis with divorce papers.

Chance meets the delightful Kat and when he learns she has a daughter, he doesn’t reveal who he is. Instead, he plans to get to know her and if he is right, his granddaughter too. What harm could it cause? Before Chance divulges his identity, he becomes ill. Making a hasty will, he leaves her his ranch with the stipulation that she live there for a year. Kat and her daughter leave for Texas.

Meanwhile, recovered from a severely injured leg and burns from the riverboat fire, Duvall swears to make the ranger pay for his suffering and he too, returns to …show more content…
Just as quickly, she points out Jakes ongoing affair with Angela. Jake denies it.

Afterward, Jake is shot. Everyone, except Jake, thinks it was a ricochet from Kat’s gun. He covers for her since she is the mother of his child.

The shooter, Duvall, followed Rodriguez’s orders to shoot Jake. Rodriguez breaks the news to Angela. To seal her disgust, he tells he heard someone say Kat called out to Jake so he’d see her shoot. Angela immediately visits Jake at the doctor’s office and repeats the story. Jake assumes the entire town knows by now.

As the days pass and Jake recuperates, Doc tells him a Winchester slug makes a big hole. Jake’s thoughts race knowing Kat carried a .45 and someone else shot him. He must question Angela to find out how she knew Kat called out to him. Jake goes to her home with the sheriff. Duvall and Rodriguez are there.

As Duvall tries to shoot Jake, a bullet hits Angela, but she is still alive. Rodriguez escapes. The sheriff shoots Duvall. Angela tells Jake how Rodriguez used her to find out information about the railroad coming to town and he intends to own as much land as he can, by any means necessary. She realizes Rodriguez is behind Harrison’s