Author(s): Holly Ford

FICTION

When high-flying veterinary specialist Magdalena O'Donnell's car breaks down on a remote road outside her old home town, she has no idea how the stranger who comes to her rescue in a country pub is about to change her life. Having brokered a fragile peace with his demons at last, ex-Afghan War pilot Mitch Stuart isn't in the market for redemption. But when he steps outside his comfort zone to help a stranger in a country pub, he inadvertently opens the door to the ghosts of a woman and a white dog he thought he'd left behind him long ago.

Veterinary specialist Lennie O'Donnell and her beloved dog, Pesh, are taking a break from big-city life to help Lennie's grandfather sell his old-fashioned rural clinic. Lennie has dedicated her career to healing those unable to tell her what's wrong, but Mitch is a puzzle even she struggles to solve - or completely let go.

Meanwhile, back in Lennie's old home town, another man of mixed messages, her high school crush Benji Cooper, is all grown up and looking at Lennie the way she always dreamed he would.

Can Mitch find the courage to let Lennie into his life? And with gorgeous, sunny, funny Benji waiting in the wings, is it a threshold Lennie wants to cross?

There's also the matter of her grandparents' unexpectedly fractured marriage to mend, and Lennie's growing suspicion there might be more to the sale of her grandfather's clinic than meets the eye.