When seventeen-year-old Tallulah Addy gets a frantic message from her best friend Maeve, she drops everything—including her own difficult family—and sets out from Oregon to rescue her. But a few days later it's Tallulah who needs help after she finds herself abandoned and penniless in rural Tennessee. Calling her family is out of the question, yet when help does come, even Tallulah couldn't have guessed it would be in the form of a dying dog.
Before long, Tallulah has a pull-out couch to sleep on, a job at the local veterinarian's office, and the beginning of a friendship (and perhaps more) with Kyle, the young assistant whose tongue-tied ways conceal a more complicated heart. But the ornery vet, Dr. Poteet, doesn't want her there, and Tallulah has little patience for cleaning kennels or holding horses that seem hell-bent on kicking her. Furious with herself for failing Maeve, Tallulah swears she'll resume her rescue mission the first chance she gets. But when that chance finally comes, will it be Maeve or the eccentric group of strangers who has the bigger claim on Tallulah's heart?