After her husband is brutally murdered in front of her, the heroine returns home to rural Vermont to recover. The hero, a neighbor who has known and held a torch for her since childhood, presents her with problems to solve and animals to nurture, poking and prodding and seducing her into recovery. This was actually very well done--not so much the plot, which was fine, but the picture of someone recovering from tragedy and reawakening to love again.