Nelda Thorne hits the road when life in her rural Georgia home town gets too hot to handle. As she goes from one disaster to another, she struggles with the thing she understands least-relationships with men. Along the way, she learns something about men and even more about herself. And she learns that what she wants most is to go back home. But the road home is blocked by the memory of her humiliation at the hands of Buddy Lawrence, a high school playboy, and the return of the man who stole her childhood and threatened her life-her cousin Duane, now a smooth-talking, Bible-toting ex-con. In exile, Nelda watches the lives of her family and friends unfold from a distance that grows greater each year she is away. In a moment of crisis, she realizes what she must do. She is through running-she's going home. Using the skills she learned as a newspaper reporter for an Atlanta paper, she uncovers the secrets and weaknesses of the two men who have shamed and frightened her for so long. But before she can confront the men and come home for good, she must confront the secrets of her own dark past.