Emma Moriarty (Sally Field), a 33-year-old divorced mother, moves to a rural Arizona town to make a living by training and boarding horses. She becomes friends with the town's pharmacist, Murphy Jones (James Garner), an idiosyncratic widower who provides her with emotional support and helps her son Jake with a part-time job. As Emma struggles to make ends meet, Murphy's friendship blossoms into romance despite his age difference and her ex-husband Bobby Jack's attempts to sabotage their relationship, leading to the eventual departure of Bobby Jack from town.