An ex-convict on parole is accused of murdering a loose woman in the town where he works.

In the 1940s, drifter Will Parker (Christopher Reeve) is new to the small town of Whitney. He just spent five years in prison in Huntsville for killing someone in La Grange, Texas--though he says he didn't do it. The first place he goes is to the diner where Lula (Helen Shaver) works as a waitress, and asks for a paper so he can look for a job. He discovers that Emily Dinsmore (co-writer Deborah Raffin) is advertising for a husband. He goes to her farm and introduces himself. Emily has two boys and is pregnant by her recently-deceased husband. He finally agrees to live in the barn and works hard helping out, but neither he or Emily feels quite comfortable with getting married. Will works hard to improve Emily's situation, and even goes to the public library to learn more about bees, which the farm has (apparently Emily's husband didn't know how to stay safe around them), and the boys also seem to like him as a substitute father. Miss Beasly (Nina Foch), the librarian, is very nice and eventually offers him a night job as library custodian. Lula has a reputation, and she wants Will, along with nearly every other man in town. Most people in town don't want to give Will a chance to go straight, especially Sheriff Reese Goodloe (J.T. Walsh). Emily is a recluse, regarded as 'Crazy Emily,' as a result of abuse she suffered as a child, in the house with the morning glories. Just as Will and Emily seem to climbing from their respective own prisons by marrying in a nearby town, saving money from the sale of eggs and honey, and welcoming a much-desired daughter after a successful home birth, he is suddenly arrested for Lula's murder. Will Emily believe him innocent and help exonerate him, or is the Sheriff right that Will is an evil force in his community?