Driven by desperation, eighteen-year-old Emily enters into a pact with Hugh Blake, a dying man old enough to be her grandfather. Arriving on Emu Downs as Hugh's wife, she runs the gauntlet of unkind gossip and suspicion as she struggles to make a place for herself in his household, and in the wider St Denis society. Believing Emily to be a hardened gold-digger, Ryan Farrelly, Hugh's station manager, is drawn to her against his better judgement. Even when he realises he has misjudged her, as a married woman she is still forbidden to him. Then it becomes known that Hugh is dying, and that Emily is pregnant; supposedly with Hugh's baby. Unbeknownst to either Emily or Ryan, Hugh writes a will which gives them the opportunity to explore their hidden feelings for each other. But will pride keep them apart? Can Ryan accept another man's child and raise little Didi as his own? Emily, on the brink of discovering true love, doubts her own heart when a girl from Ryan's past reappears. Will Vivienne's vicious jealousy succeed in driving them apart?