Hap Collins is home, fresh from his stint on an offshore oil rig, bright with determination to change his life. Back in LaBorde, he finds his friend Leonard Pine grieving over the breakup of his affair with his lover Raul. Then things get serious. A local roughneck by the name of Horse Dick is dead and Leonard is implicated. Not surprisingly, the law is little use. To help his partner, Hap won't be bending the law, he'll be stomping the hell out of it. But Hap has always had to do things he doesn't like. What he does like - a lot - is Brett Sawyer, a nurse and a woman with her own past.