Josie Hollingsworth is beautiful, tenacious, and successful. She's also haunted by her past. For years, her brilliant, mentally ill parents consistently compromised their children's sense of security. But Josie worked diligently to distance herself from their world, a world filled with hallucinations and anxiety. However, now that her sister has also succumbed to mental illness, Josie fears that all of her efforts were for nothing, that she's doomed to the same fate.Enter Stone Romero, a sexy, charismatic, strong-willed pediatrician. After their unlikely meeting in an Austin, Texas Emergency Room, Stone recognizes Josie's need for support during her time of crisis. He offers her his help, assuring her that there are no strings attached despite their mutual attraction. Josie soon discovers that Stone, grieving the loss of his identical twin and repressing anger regarding his own childhood issues, needs her help as much as she needs his. For the first time in her life, Josie enjoys love, intimacy, and explosive sex. As they travel to Stone's hometown in northern Louisiana, they work to begin a new life together. Scandals resulting from both Hollingsworth and Romero family secrets lead to terrible tragedies and horrific violence, pushing the couple to their physical and emotional limits. Josie recognizes that Stone is the one man in the world who will never put her in a compromising position and prays that it's not too late for them to have the storybook ending she never imagined would be within her grasp.