Dr. Rory "Swift Eagle" Oakes could track, tame and treat the orneriest of beasts. But his five-foot-five freckle-faced first love Kristi Kerrigan had inexplicably disappeared from his life six years before, only to return to Grass Valley, Montana, with a new love: a dark-eyed, bronze-skinned little boy the spitting image of his daddy.

Rory couldn't deny the passion that blazed anew between him and the mother of his child. Nor could he deny the pain of being deprived of the miracle of his baby's first breath, and the five years of "firsts" that followed. But Kristi and their boy were within reach now, and this time Rory would stop at nothing to ensure these family ties lasted forever….