The last thing Ally saw before darkness closed in was a fractured and shattered face. A sort of Cubist nightmare, etched not in paint and canvas but flesh and bone. Who was the stranger who had rescued her from the attackers who stood between Ally and her resolution to leave town in order to heal from her failed first love with the father of her beloved son Cody? Waking in the hospital, her eyes bandaged, she "saw" Tyler for the first time with her fingers.

As she reached toward him, Tyler had an absurd vision that if Ally touched his face, he would crumble to dust. He felt hollow, an empty shell of a person. For years, no one but his Taekwondo students had touched him. All those doctors, their clinical touch, a childhood memory Tyler preferred to forget.

What were the odds they could overcome the pain of the past, juggle the demands of the present, and find a future that was more than either could hope for?

The last thing Ally saw before darkness closed in was a fractured and shattered face. A sort of Cubist nightmare, etched not in paint and canvas but flesh and bone. Who was the stranger who had rescued her from the attackers who stood between Ally and her resolution to leave town in order to heal from her failed first love with the father of her beloved son Cody? Waking in the hospital, her eyes bandaged, she "saw" Tyler for the first time with her fingers.

As she reached toward him, Tyler had an absurd vision that if Ally touched his face, he would crumble to dust. He felt hollow, an empty shell of a person. For years, no one but his Taekwondo students had touched him. All those doctors, their clinical touch, a childhood memory Tyler preferred to forget.

What were the odds they could overcome the pain of the past, juggle the demands of the present, and find a future that was more than either could hope for?