Driven from the Dumas Mansion back to her beloved bayou, Ruby's only
hope is that fate will let her begin anew...
Living again in a humble shack, Ruby is determined to make a secure and
happy home for her precious infant daughter, Pearl. Paul Tate-- her
first love, whom she was forced to abandon-- is at her side once more,
now a man of dazzling wealth. When he whisks her into his grand house,
it seems their future is assured. As mistress of Cypress Woods, Ruby can
forget even the shocking reason she and Paul must wed in a secret
ceremony and remain husband and wife in name alone.
But the thick, expensive walls of Cypress Woods cannot shut out the
terrible memories that have woven their fabric over her destiny, or the
cold eyes of Paul's mother, Gladys, reminding Ruby of the secret she
must keep to give Pearl a loving father. Then her venomous twin sister,
Gisselle, arrives to taunt her with news of Beau Andreas, the true
father Pearl has never met, and the only man Ruby will ever long for
with all her body and soul, Desperate to find the complete, fulfilling
life she craves, Ruby builds a precarious new existence, a flimsy shanty
of hope that the first flood washes away. Only when the storm exposes
the very blackest evils of the past will she glimpse the rainbow's
fragile promise, a morning of sunshine and laughter with a family of her
own...