Running from their hometown of Addington, Massachusetts, Jeff Myers and Beth Pritchard are planning to hide out at his friend's family summer home in Lobster Cove, Maine. Fighting a raging blizzard, all they want is to find a justice of peace to marry them after Betsy finds she is pregnant.

Only 15, Betsy's father went crazy and threatened to have Jeff arrested for statutory rape. Her best friend Katie told the police where they were and Beth was immediately packed up by her father and kept moving from place to place to avoid Jeff. In exchange for allowing her to keep her baby, she and the baby would be under the unforgiving and rigid control of her father and his strict rules and she must never let Jeff know about the baby.

After her father's death Beth changed her name to Rawson where she moved to Lobster Cove with son Danny. Beth gives piano lessons and works part time at a local sewing store. Ten-year-old Danny believes his father died in Afghanistan. When a super "sex-on-a-stick" guy comes to town as the new coach at the school, Beth is devastated that it's Jeff. Having lied to him that the baby was given up for adoption, he gets the truth when confronting Betsy as the mother of a student who is injured.

Beth can't avoid the truth any longer. It especially hurt her to learn that Jeff had married Katie, the very one that ruined their lives. Now divorced his 6-year-old daughter Cookie is the highlight of his life, but Katie is a lying shrew. While working to gain Beth's love again and be in his son's life, Katie makes their lives impossible with her control through Cookie. Beth is not sure if she can trust Jeff again to put her past deceit behind him to begin the life she has always dreamed of.

This story from the Lobster Cove Series is emotional and romantic. My heart went out to the innocent girl controlled by a dominant, angry father who held her love for the only boy she ever loved or kissed. The strength of her character is amazing and the growth from a girl to an independent woman is a lesson learned for all women. I would love to read the other stories in this series and will do that as soon as possible. The small town residents are loving and supportive people lending a hand wherever needed. Doreen Alsen knows exactly how to pull at the heart strings to create a story that will long time be remembered by the reader.