In early 1930s Montana, in the small town of Colton, Maddy Aldridge struggles to make ends meet in the difficult times of the Great Depression. With her mother long dead, her stubborn younger sister fighting her at every turn, and her father's arthritis deteriorating so badly that she has to run the family store alone, her desperation grows by the day. Enter Jeffers Grimm with a proposition too great for her to turn down: open an illegal speakeasy in the mercantile's basement, defy Prohibition, and make enough money to make her worries disappear. Unbeknownst to Maddy, Jeffers has made a deal with the mob to bring huge quantities of alcohol across the Canadian border and store it in the mercantile. He wants to get rich, regardless of who stands in his way.

Jack Rucker is an agent for the Bureau of Prohibition, the federal police force created for the difficult task of enforcing the new law. Good at his job, Jack works undercover, infiltrating taverns all over the country, finding out where the booze flows from and putting people behind bars. Years earlier, he'd been a boy living in Colton, loving a young Maddy Aldridge. Now, after hearing rumors of an operation, the Bureau wants him to go back and hide in plain sight. With a pain-in-the-rump partner breathing down his neck, what will Jack do when he finds out what Maddy is up to? Because of how he left, can he and Maddy rekindle the love they once knew? If Jeffers discovers Jack is a federal agent, to what ends will he go to silence him forever?