Tess Dyer s husband, Jason, promised to love her forever. That was eleven years ago, before the fights, before the pain, before the bitter divorce. Now he is just another in a long line of people who rejected Tess, from her coldly distant mother to the seemingly endless string of one-night stands from her youth whose names she can t remember. Desperate to escape the pain of the past, Tess flees her small Maine hometown of Brookfield for the even smaller New Mills. There, she hopes to start over and forget what she left behind with the help, perhaps, of her handsome new neighbor, Brian. He is drawn to Tess s quirky, outspoken nature, and to the beauty he sees in her haunting paintings. She tells herself he is just a warm young body to help mask the pain, though his kindness and his affection for his troubled sister are having quite an effect on her bruised heart. But the fear of losing his love is always there, and when a man from her past unexpectedly shows up, Tess s personal demons threaten to destroy the fragile happiness she has found with Brian. Ultimately, she must make a choice: continue wandering through life, drifting and numb, or confront the cruel realities of her past once and for all and finally start living."