Stressed-out workaholic Whitney Sheridan takes a leave from her high-powered cable news job in New York when her last living relative, Aunt Claudia, dies and leaves Whitney to settle her estate in Washita, Texas. Determined to perform her duty to the aunt she loved, the aunt with whom she spent her childhood summers, Whitney heads west, planning to get everything taken care of and get back to her New York news job within a few days.
She hadn't planned on the people of Washita. Her old friends from her childhood summers, her aunt's friends, her aunt's neighbors. Heavens, over a hundred people came to the funeral.
Then there was the house—it was in no shape to sell. And maybe if Whitney hadn't distanced herself from Aunt Claudia years ago when she determined to shut down her emotions and concentrate on her job, she might have known that Claudia owned a consignment shop featuring the works of local artists.
First things first. The house required work. Local carpenter Adam Burkett had already begun, so Whitney agreed that he should finish.
Adam would finish, but not because Miss Big City Sheridan "allowed" him to. He would do it for Miz Henderson, because she had loved all the rooms of the old house. But he didn't have to like the woman who abandoned her aging aunt, leaving her to die with no family around.
Yet why, despite his dislike and disapproval of Whitney Sheridan, does Adam find himself drawn to her more strongly every day, when he goes to work on Miz Henderson's house? Probably because he sees beneath that hard, emotionless shell Whitney presents to the world to the woman who loved her aunt and is trying to shield her wounded heart from pain and damage. If Adam knows anything, it's how to repair damage. All he has to do is keep himself from getting hurt while loving Whitney.
