Halle Jayne Murphy can’t imagine change. She loves her career. She shares an apartment with her best friend. She’s happy. She has lived an idyllic life in San Francisco growing up as the only child of Maisie and Fred Murphy.

A graduate in architecture of the Art Institute, Halle works for one of the city’s historic home tours, a job that suits her. But one Sunday while she’s working her mother slips at church and falls, the head injury claiming her life. At the memorial service the pastor presents an envelope of documents that he says will rock Halle’s world. Now officially an orphan, everything Halle believed about herself will soon prove to be false. Will she accept the challenge?

Garrett James has studied the life and adventures of his great-great-grandfather Cornelius Joel Hills, tracing his westward migration from Cortland, New York to Oregon’s Willamette Valley in 1847. Garrett has searched for clues that will lead him to a lost bag of gold Cornelius buried but never reclaimed. Garrett believes the answers lie in the old family mansion no one seems to want. He decides to let himself into the house with a hammer and nails, only to discover the long lost owner has finally arrived.

Will this pixie of a girl allow him to look for answers or has he stumbled upon a greater treasure?