When a child goes missing from the Orphan House in the town of Stone-in-the-Glen, the mayor suggests the kindly Ogress is responsible, but the orphans do not believe that and try to make their deluded neighbors see the real villain among them.

When Reuben the bear brings doughnuts to his forest friends, they discover that his pants are wet and he angrily accuses them of the dirty deed.

Each time something goes wrong in the Choat household Jimmy blames the pet goat, Patsy Petunia Oat, who tries to tell the truth about Jimmy's misdeeds but neither Mr. nor Mrs. Choat can understand her language.

Six years ago, when Camden Daniels came back from war without his younger brother, no one in the small town of Alba, Colorado, would forgive him--especially his father. He left, swearing never to return. But a desperate message from his father brings it all back. The betrayal. The pain. And the need to go home again. But home is where the one person he still loves is waiting. Willow. The one woman he can never have. Because there are secrets buried...