The heart of wealthy landowner Alvaro Montellano is possessed by jealousy when he reads what he believes to be a letter to his wife Soledad. The contents of letter convince him that his wife is having an affair with his foreman Jose, and that his daughter Alina is actually Jose’s child. Ignoring her claims of innocence, he confines Soledad to his remote coffee plantation, Sierra Escondida, and awaits Alina’s return, to vent his hatred on her as well.
Unaware of the brooding storm ahead, Alina spends carefree days in the company of Emilio Valtierra, a handsome army captain who has fallen deeply in love with her. Happy and lighthearted, Alina arrives at the hacienda, only to find her kind and loving father in a state of monstrous wrath. With wild accusations and threats, Alvaro banishes her to Sierra Escondida, to live in a cave with the local healing woman, Luba. To save her mother from death, Alina submits to her father’s will and agrees to live in the miserable conditions he has imposed.
To the villagers in Sierra Escondida, she is soon known as Flor del Campo (Meadow Flower). When Emilio comes looking for Alina, Alvaro curtly informs him that she and her mother have gone abroad. The young officer, believing that her love was a lie, leaves in bitter disappointment.
Two years later, Emilio, now sullen and resentful, chances upon Flor del Campo, whom he fails to recognize because of her plain, shabby appearance. The fact that she resembles Alina reawakens the rancor he still carries inside him, and he treats the girl with harsh disrespect; however, he cannot help feeling attracted to her. When Alvaro deceives him into believing that Alina has died in an accident, Emilio, stricken by grief, decides to marry Flor del Campo.
But the ceremony is violently interrupted by Alvaro, who wants no happiness for Alina. Emilio appears to be mortally wounded. At that moment, a woman named Thelma appears in the church, claiming to be pregnant with Emilio’s child, and coerces the priest into marrying them in articulo mortis. But Emilio recovers and, now, perhaps too late, Alina must find the way to pry Emilio out of Thelma’s greedy clutches, while trying to expose the hideous lie that destroyed her mother’s life, and has turned her own father into her worst enemy.