Geology student Leo Day has been waiting for a big find to prove his career path is worthy to his father. While riding the train along the Arkansas River in Canon City, Colorado, Leo spots a young woman waving at the passing cars holding something that looks like a piece of fossilized bone. He catches up to the girl after leaping from the slow train and his pulse gallops when he recognizes it as a rib bone from a smaller dinosaur species, most likely a Allosaurus. She confides she's found several similar bones, and he asks her to show him where."

"Whether it was loneliness or boredom that led Jennie Ward to leave the water line and escort this stranger to the place where her daddy's border collie had unearthed several bones, she couldn't say, but she enjoys visiting with him. Could he become the friend she's been praying for? As he leaves, he promises to return soon and asks if she'll be his guide. She has little time for socializing, given her responsibility to the water works due to her father's injury and aftermath, but the opportunity to gain a friend is too hard to resist. She agrees."

"As the weeks pass, Leo, a man longing for a father's approval, and Jennie, a girl trapped by her loyalty to a despondent father, become friends and confidantes. And God's plan for both Leo's and Jennie's futures will unfold like an excavation of dinosaur bones.