 Eight year old Eddie s parents are killed when the plane his father is piloting crashes into a mountain near their home. Eddie s uncle Frank, who is also a pilot, is left to care for the boy. Soon, however, Frank takes a long-term job abroad and Eddie is left to be raised by ranch manager Ernesto and his school-teacher wife Margaret. When Frank returns ten years later and fulfills his brother s wish that Eddie be taught to fly, Eddie struggles to find his bearings as a young man with mixed emotions toward his uncle, his love for the couple who raised him, the loss of his birth parents, and his blossoming first love with Francesca. As children, Francesca and Eddie are schoolmates, but separate when her family moves away. She and her father return to the town when she is in high school. Now teenagers, Francesca and Eddie are on the verge of becoming more than friends until Francesca flees to Mexico after experiencing a life-changing incident.