Layne can think of better ways to spend half her summer than helping her family condense the contents of Gram’s five-bedroom house so it fits into a one-bedroom apartment, but she jumps in with her cousins, ready to do her part, resigned to what promises to be weekend after weekend of drudgery. Until Parker appears in the backyard with his tool belt.

Parker knows the repairs on the old house won’t take more than a few weekends, and the work is so routine he barely has to think about it, leaving his mind free to focus on the characters in the adventure novel he’s writing, and the fact that he can’t find a woman to model his female lead after. He’s been searching for the right one for weeks and is no closer to reaching his goal. And then he sees Layne.

Parker needs Layne, and makes no secret of it. Layne is delighted to go along with Parker’s adventurous date suggestions, and soon realizes she loves him. Unable to keep her feelings to herself, she confesses her love and learns that while he’s been changing her life, she’s merely been inspiration for a character in his novel.

Until the day he realizes the terrible mistake he’s made.