Three years after the destructive 1900 Galveston, Texas Hurricane, Amie Anders is unexpecteddly summoned to the Houston law office of her friend and lawyer, Loman Nurge. As she waits impatiently to learn the reason for this mysterious meeting, she reflects back upon her life. 

Growing up in the post-Civil War era along the Buffalo River in Tennessee, she barely survives her dysfunctional upbringing. A distant cousin, Harry Aylett, finds her in squalor and rescues her from hunger and deprivation, but being her benefactor isn’t all he’s interested in. A deep abiding love develops between the two, and somehow they manage to keep their secret relationship hidden from Harry’s wife Hattie. 

When the Galveston Hurricane destroys everything, the four friends face an unknown future. Even as they restructure their lives, they experience more personal tragedy. And now the unimaginable is about to occur in Amie’s life. 

To hide her deepest, darkest secret from those she loves, Amie must give up her identity, become Amma Geary and create a whole new life for herself far from Houston and her friends. But when her secrets are revealed, her deceptions exposed, lives are turned upside down, including hers. Is she strong enough to survive? Will she endure or be destroyed in the winds of her own personal hurricane?

Amie Anders sat poised and proper, her gloved hands resting on her lap and her back stiff against the curve of the hand-carved chair. The horse-hair leather seat underneath her torso was firm and unforgiving. Though she had been waiting for less than fifteen minutes for her appointment in the Houston law office, she was having some difficulty sitting so stiffly. It had been a very long day and wild hairs were forever sliding out of the tight bun she’d fashioned so carefully on the top of her head that morning.

To help pass the time she analyzed the room. Dark wooden panels covered the walls of the reception area and matched precisely the polished wooden floor brushing the hem of her skirt. The soles of her tightly-laced leather shoes rested on the edge of an expensive hand-knotted carpet which covered the center area of the room. She recognized the fine quality of workmanship. Its pattern created a dance of floral and woodland animals below her feet, providing a slight distraction as she waited to meet with Loman Nurge.

She closed her eyes. Why was she was here without any explanation? What was it her lawyer had to tell her? She became anxious and fidgety. She had been like this all week but especially this morning. Men can be so infuriating and frustrating, she thought. She shook her head trying to relax the muscles tensing in at the base of her neck and took a deep breath to calm herself.

She forced herself to concentrate again on the carpet’s hand-stitched warp. She followed tiny streams of heavy threads which turrned into larger streams, all flowing in all directions and finally blending into a large river down the center. Perhaps the Mississippi. She could feel the peaceful flow and ebb of the imaginary river currents and allowed her mind to return to the rivers and hollows of her childhood in Tennessee, along the Buffalo River.

She closed her eyes tightly. With all that had happened in her life, this moment of peace was only that—a moment. Her home had been a place of anguish too; a place to escape for a new life. In this place and time the line between saint and sinner was blurred, not unlike faded brushstrokes on a forgotten canvas. Only God would know the difference.

If He cared at all.