When Mel and her mother leave the home of an abusive man, Mel allows herself to dream of a secure place to live, but that dream soon falls apart when the grandmother that they looked to for shelter is not as expected.

As Jo helps her mother and her baby brother on a cold and windy Christmas Eve, she searches for shelter - any kind of shelter - for the little family. Her mother is ill and the baby needs feeding. There is no other option but a barn owned by a local farmer known as a solitary grouch. Nobody cares for Franklin Murdoch, and Jo doesn't trust him to care for her family. But Murdoch turns out to be less of a threat than Jo has feared. He makes the desperate...