Navy Captain Jacob Shaw is close to reaching his professional goal. He is setting himself up to be promoted to Navy admiral and has strong support from politically elected officials and political appointees, along with high-ranking military officers from the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Prior to his promotion to Navy captain, he meets a woman on a flight from Tampa to Washington, DC. They start a love affair, and she ends up being the woman he has been looking for his whole adult life. Their relationship grows, and together they flourish. Jake and Barbara Rostowski--or Bobbie, as she likes to be called--find a rhythm together where they are far better as a couple than they ever could have been individually. After they have an unusual engagement and a spur-of-the-moment marriage in a way that could only have been orchestrated by Jake, they embark on building a good life together. The only thing left for Jake to achieve his pinnacle of success and be at the top of the mountain is making admiral.



Then one day, Jake's whole life changes. He faces an impenetrable blockade to his dream. But now, with Bobbie, the love of his life at his side, he is ready to start again but with a whole new set of rules.