Murphy's Romance

Wanting to start a new life with her twelve year-old son Jake, thirty three year-old divorcee Emma Moriarty, with little in her pockets in terms of money, rents a farmstead outside a small town in the west, starting a business of opening a stable to house and train horses. In town, she befriends the local pharmacist owner/operator Murphy Jones, a widower. Murphy is now a bit of a Renaissance man, learning how to do things just because he can as he approaches retirement. Although Murphy does not directly answer Emma's appeals for assistance in helping her make ends meet, Murphy does whatever he can to support her business, including purchasing a horse and housing it at her place. Despite the difference in their ages, Murphy seems to be falling for Emma, which she doesn't really seem to notice in that name of friendship. Noticing Murphy as a man becomes all the more difficult for Emma with the arrival back on the scene of her deadbeat ex-husband, Bobby Jack Moriarty, who vows that he is turning over a new leaf. Emma can still see in Bobby Jack the reasons she married him, but she can also see in him the reasons why they got divorced. And so letting Bobby Jack stay is in large part because of Emma's want for a male figure in Jake's life, Jake's actual father being the ideal. Through her time with both Bobby Jack and Murphy, Emma may for the first time in her life be able to wade through what's happening on the surface to discover true love.