Enterprising, outspoken Payton Dixon has two passionate dreams... her own clipper ship and the love of Captain Connor Drake. But both find themselves impossibly distant when her beloved captain is about to marry another, and, to make matters worse, her ship is given to him as a wedding gift from her treacherous father. To prove that the truth is on her side, Payton manages to spark a scandal and give rise to all sorts of troubles. As for Drake, he can't decide whether to strangle the girl he grew up with or make love to the beauty she has become.