For Kendra Clayton life is good—for about five minutes. Then her sweetie, lawyer Carl Brumfield, leaves town to help out his sister in Cleveland. Her soon-to-be-married best friend picks out a hideous bridesmaid's dress for her to wear (a sequined Smurf—blue nightmare with a bow on the butt). The work she loves as a part-time GED instructor turns into the job from hell when a retired kindergarten teacher with the personality of a piranha becomes her new boss.

And to top it all off, Detective Trish Harmon of the Willow, Ohio, police department shows up at her class looking for Kendra's favorite student, a troubled young man named Timmy who has been straightening out his life.

A pretty local beautician is dead, and Timmy is suspect number one. When he later shows up at Kendra's apartment begging for help, it's only one more step before Kendra's back on the road to trouble again, trying to find the real killer, stepping over the line from a nice safe life into danger…and getting tangled in the deadly roots of desire.