After a terrible start in life, Asher Harris picks himself up and manages to carve out a fairly decent future. Content with living alone in his bookshop, he shies away from relationships and keeps trust to a minimum. Emma Carnes hasn't seen Asher in years, though she's never forgotten him. Their one interaction as teenagers became pivotal to them both. It gave her a career. It saved his life. Emma saw things about Asher that nobody else did. When she urged him to escape a perilous situation, it turned her toward her purpose in life...and saved Asher. Intrigued by the strong man he's become, she gently persuades him to open up, but finds his emotional walls hard to climb. She also hopes for his help with a troubled teen, Gabe Dearing, who reminds her very much of Asher himself. Their relationship and ties to Gabe threaten to reveal things someone wants to keep hidden... Someone is watching Emma, trying to figure out what she knows, and she soon senses something isn't right. When the bookshop is vandalized and Gabe disappears, only to return bloody, broken, and refusing to say what happened, Asher an