When Jack Snyder met Carly Tenney on her Montana ranch eight years ago, the attraction was instant. What took a lot longer was a stable relationship.

Working on a case together back in Oakdale, Carly and Jack became inseparable - until they got close to consummating their love. Then just about anything - from meddling exes to hypothermia - kept them apart. Going nowhere fast with Jack, Carly turned to reliable cop Hal Munson. Heartbroken, Jack took off for Chicago, where he met beautiful Julia Lindsey, whom he later married.

In spite of their significant others, the paths of these star-crossed lovers kept intersecting. And before long, Jack asked Carly to marry him. It was a picture-perfect wedding - well, until Carly left Jack at the altar. Though the jilting was ultimately to protect him and son, Parker, from Winston Lowe - a man it turned out she was still married to! - Carly didn’t get a chance to explain. Returning to town months later, she found a heartbroken Jack had moved on with Julia.

Not one to give up, Carly kept at Jack, and before long, he’d admitted he loved her, too. Everyone was happy - well, everyone except Jack’s increasingly unstable wife, Julia, who retaliated by trying to kill Carly in a boathouse explosion. In the fallout from the blast, Carly realized how much the fight for Jack’s love had cost them, and she left town once again.

When she returned under the guise of designing a clothing line with local lothario Craig Montgomery, she found that keeping her distance from Jack was easier said than done. So when a job offer appeared from Paris, Carly jetted across the Atlantic - only to find herself kidnapped at the hands of nefarious James Stenbeck and hauled to a spa, where she was aged several years. Both Jack and Craig fought valiantly to find her, but Jack was ultimately the man who brought her back - to Oakdale and his home.

They married a few months later and Jack and a pregnant Carly set up a happy home. But once again domestic bliss proved short-lived. Jack soon discovered that the night before their wedding, a misunderstanding had led Carly into old flame Mike Kasnoff’s arms. Hurt, Jack walked out on her, for what he swore was the last time.

Never one to give up, Carly worked feverishly until she had convinced Jack that he was the only man she’d ever loved. Finally Jack forgave her, and they renewed their vows in the same Montana cabin that had started their love.

Still, the cruel hand of fate had to take one last swipe at their happy home. After a year together, Jack’s car veered off a bridge while he was transporting a prisoner. Even as all of Oakdale mourned his death, Carly refused to let go - and for once proved everyone wrong, tracking him down through a series of coincidences to a small town in Missouri. But a happy ending not so easy to come by, as Jack, who’d washed up with a nasty case of amnesia, not only couldn’t remember his wife but had married another woman, Julia Larrabee! Strangely pulled to Carly, however, he reluctantly agreed to bring his new family back to Oakdale. With no other options, Carly tricked Jack into meeting her in Montana. Though initially furious, his anger melted away as memories of their life together washed over him. Finally certain of who he was and how much he loved her, Jack returned home with Carly, where they now live, happily ever after.