Beautiful, spirited, vivacious Petronella Sanders, 19 years old, is a careless and carefree girl without responsibilities. She sees an ad for a teaching assignment and fights her family to let her go to her first rural teaching job and lands in a boiling cauldron of greed, passion, violence and a lascivious wealthy hacendado who wants to keep her for his own. She is the teacher, the example for the people, Morgan Masters their advisor. A handsome, wealthy financier, a socialite from New York with vast experience with women, Morgan finds himself unsettled and mesmerized by a country girl. Petronella is madly in love with Morgan, wants Morgan until all her being and thoughts are for Morgan. In her new assignment, Petronella goes through a painful rites passage from girl to womanhood in bloodshed, fighting alongside the people from Ojo de Agua. She fights her passion for Morgan, but it's ever there with her, tantalizing her. Thrown together to solve the problems at Ojo de Agua, a sophisticated Morgan finds himself attracted to the girl and questions his intentions toward her, until he fi nds himself just as madly embroiled in the exciting fascination that is Petronella. Much as he tries to get away from Petronella, their attraction only increases until Petra will do anything for a taste of Morgan.