Elizabeth Thatcher is an independent, strong-willed teacher who has foregone the life of the big city and found a job, a home—and romance with a handsome Mountie named Jack—in the small frontier town of Coal Valley. But when she learns that her mother has taken ill, she returns to Hamilton, her hometown, with Jack as her escort. Once in the comparably opulent Hamilton, Elizabeth and Jack are confounded by Jack's ne'er-do-well brother and Elizabeth's former suitor, Charles Kensington. But it is Elizabeth's father, William, who drives a wedge between them when he suggests to Jack that Charles would be a better match for his well-bred daughter.