Gunfighter Cort Packet rides into the town of Scarlet intending to kill Yucca Frazel, but many try to prevent him: Frazel's employer rancher Addison Blackwell, an Indian agent cheating Apaches out of goods, a gunfighter rumoured to have murdered the marshal's husband, and the marshal herself - Rebecca Rogers, trying to find the truth about her husband's death, forced into being marshal in a fixed election by the powerful rancher who professes warm feelings for her. But are the feelings for her, or are they for the riches on her land? Before Cort can finish his business with Yucca Frazel, he finds himself caught up in killings, treachery, stealing and politics that threaten to leave him lying dead.

Beautiful Mandy Lee enjoys an elegant and genteel life in North Carolina, but hides an unconventional past. Raised by gunfighter Dan Quint, Mandy is quick on the draw and harbours a burning need for revenge against Monte Steep, the man who murdered her family. And when she learns that Dan, who has his own reasons for hunting Steep, has finally tracked him down, she has to decide whether to forego her life of luxury and her rich fianc? to rejoin Dan on his quest for vengeance.