Sometimes, when a heart breaks, the damage is so severe the only way it can heal is to return it to the land where it was born. Knowing this, Millie Handley makes one request of her husband, Dan, when she discovers her cancer is terminal—to return home to Nebraska and build the house he’s been dreaming of since he was a little boy.

Two months after Millie’s funeral, Dan finds himself pulling up the rutted, dirt driveway that winds around the banks of Chelsea Lake, headed toward a desolate future he’s not sure he wants to survive. Unable to grieve and desperate to forget the life he lost, Dan locks himself in his great-grandfather’s cabin and allows the pain to consume him, like a grass fire burning out of control.

Stacy Ruzicka’s final promise to her best friend, Millie, was to help Dan through the pain, and she’s determined to do just that—whether he wants her to or not. Stacy and Dan have known each other longer than their memories reach back, and she knows him better than he knows himself, but the harder she tries to force Dan to rise from the depths of his grief and take that first breath of life again, the harder he pushes her away—until he’s suddenly pulling her into his arms and into his healing heart.