Appealing to district attorney Rourke Kilpatrick when her troubled brother is arrested on drug charges, naive Rebecca Cullen finds herself falling for this man who might be using her and her family to get to a notorious drug dealer.

Enduring a hardscrabble existence as the children of alcoholic and absent parents, four siblings from a coastal Mississippi town prepare their meager stores for the arrival of Hurricane Katrina while struggling with such challenges as a teen pregnancy and a dying litter of prize puppies.