When Kate enrolls in an art course at a community college, she discovers that her teacher, Ellen Carruthers, was Paul's college sweetheart. Kate is wary of the woman, but soon Ellen has enlisted Kate's help to solve an old family squabble. Ellen's family owns an abandoned mining town on High Hoot Ridge, but unless she can prove her claim on the land, it will be sold to a paper company, and the region's richest history--along with her family memories--will be lost.