Many stories regarding the Larry Becker Family in The Shadows of the Sawtooth Ridge exist. This is Dakota Dean's story before she became Larry Becker's wife and the mother of his two children. It is the story of a teenager who fell in love with a young cowboy only to choose another way because he was not from her group of rodeo friends. It is a story of a young woman becoming the best in high school, college, and professional rodeo. Later, she became the best in the newspaper world. A jealous boyfriend spoiled the one date in college they had. It is a story of two people and their separate lives, eventually bringing them together twenty years later and the feelings that were always there.