Summer in Rialto

Ranch life saps the good looks from a woman and eighteen-year-old Summer Gorman has no intention of letting that happen to her. Looking to experience life and make her own way in the world she leaves her parents Herm and Sara and their run-down 1400-acre ranch. Hitching a ride into Rialto a small Tex-Mex town thirty miles from the ranch Summer lands a job as a waitress at Café Rialto a diner owned by former boxer Sharkey Gallos. Looking for excitement and perhaps romance Summer finds plenty of each. As her romance with Sharkey grows so does her realization that Sharkey's passion for big money and his increasing involvement with the drug traffic are heading for big trouble. Summer finds her ties with the ranch are not completely severed as her former classmate Clay Burnside rediscovers her in Rialto and awakens old memories she had forgotten. Then her mother promotes her own ambitions as well as spiting Summer by deeding the ranch to her church. Summer begins a season filled with periods of breathtaking beauty and moments of abject terror. She learns who she is and what love is really about while growing from a girl into a woman.