Mark Dornan is a divorced former Marine, now a test pilot at Armadillo Works in west Texas. Driving home one day, he is pulled over by Deputy Beryl Barker for speeding, but manages to make her giggle and has the brass to ask her out on a date, which she declines. He encounters her later that evening at a beer joint, where he's in a pool tournament, and this time, charms her into accepting at least coffee and pie at a local diner, where things start to turn sideways as Mark breaks up an attempted robbery. Beryl admits attraction, at least inwardly. But both are saddled with hard baggage by the cheating of Mark's ex-wife Rhonda, and by terrible scars Beryl wears after an ambush in which she was shot in the belly, wrecking her uterus. Despite it all, each decides to gamble on the other. But there are all kinds of fresh twists and turns, not the least of which is a murderer in Montoya County who makes it his mission to murder Beryl and anyone else who gets in his way.
