Harvey and Summer pressure Cade to make a hiring decision before the summer starts without a nanny for Luke.

Cade picks up a pair of dropped underwear at a coffee shop, embarrassed to find the owner is the same woman he just met.

Summer drives her best friend Willa to Wishing Well Ranch to introduce her to Cade and Luke.

Cade reluctantly hires Willa as Luke's nanny for the summer despite his serious doubts about her suitability.

Luke tells Willa that his mother left their family when he was two years old and almost never visits.

Cade finds Willa already in his hot tub one evening and invites her to stay, sparking their first real conversation.

During a truth or dare game in the hot tub, Cade reveals that his mother died when he was eight.

Willa dares Cade to start competing in rodeos again and promises to watch Luke while he trains.

Cade competes in a weekend rodeo as the whole Eaton family watches from the stands, and Willa is deeply impressed.

Cade and Willa argue on the porch after the rodeo, confess their feelings for each other, and have sex for the first time.

Cade breaks his fingers during ranch work and Willa rushes him to the emergency room.

Willa takes a pregnancy test at the hospital after realizing her period has not started, and the result is positive.

Willa tells Cade she is pregnant on the drive home from the hospital.

Luke shows Willa the freshly poured sidewalk decorated with stone hearts and her initials written as 'W.E.'

Willa gives birth to a baby girl named Isabelle Emma Eaton, and Cade and Luke gather around her at the hospital.

Cade Eaton, a gruff rancher and single father, is pressured into hiring Willa Grant as a summer nanny for his five-year-old son, Luke. Despite a tense start, Willa's warmth gradually breaks through Cade's guarded exterior, helped along by late-night hot tub conversations and a dare that pulls him back to the rodeo. Their unspoken attraction finally ignites in an argument on the porch after a night apart, launching a secret relationship neither is prepared for. An unexpected pregnancy forces both of them to confront their fears about commitment and belonging rather than letting the summer simply end. After a painful separation, they find their way back to each other and declare their love at the ranch. The story closes with the birth of their daughter, Isabelle, completing the family Willa and Cade never knew they were building.

The headline romance: from reluctant hiring to new family.

Cade interviews a nanny applicant who leaves Harvey and Summer unimpressed and Cade deeply unsatisfied.

Willa and Luke make chocolate chip pancakes together on her first morning at the ranch.

Willa buys a head of lettuce at the store so she and Luke can toss it out of her Jeep on the back road.

The Eaton family, including Jasper Gervais and Willa, gathers for dinner at Harvey's house.

Cade and Willa slip outside during Harvey's dinner and dissolve into laughter together over Harvey's accidental innuendo.

Cade asks Willa to dance at The Railspur bar to escape Lance, but then abandons her alone on the dance floor.

Willa insists on riding one of Cade's untrained horses at the barn and impresses him and the ranch hands.

Luke gets a stomach bug and Willa cares for him alone at the house while Cade handles an escaped herd on the ranch.

Cade and Willa ride horses around the ranch together and Cade warns her about how Talia typically behaves at Luke's birthday.

Talia arrives late to Luke's birthday party and immediately puts Cade on edge with her manner toward him and Luke.

Talia tells Willa that she deliberately lied about being on birth control in order to get pregnant with Luke.

Cade finds Willa fuming in the kitchen during the birthday party and they have sex before rejoining the guests.

Cade confesses to Harvey that Willa is pregnant, and Harvey urges him to tell Willa exactly how he feels.

Cade takes Luke to the wishing well on the ranch and they both throw in coins wishing for Willa to come back.

Cade competes at the Canadian Championship Rodeo and sees Willa watching him from the stands, feeling overwhelmed with happiness.

Before Cade and Willa even meet officially, the frustrations of finding a suitable nanny set the tone for Cade's guarded world. Once Willa settles into ranch life, a series of warm, domestic moments — pancakes with Luke, a family dinner, an impromptu dance — slowly build a sense of belonging she never expected. Her bold ride on an untrained horse and a night managing Luke's illness alone reveal her genuine capability and care. Tensions resurface when Talia, Luke's absent mother, arrives at his birthday party and makes a shocking confession to Willa about how she trapped Cade. As Willa comes to terms with the pregnancy, Cade confides in his father Harvey and later brings Luke to the ranch's wishing well, where they both throw in coins for the same wish. The story closes at the Canadian Championship Rodeo, where Cade spots Willa in the crowd and feels the full weight of what they have built together.

Ranch life, family moments, and Talia's shadow.

Cade overhears Willa tell Luke that his absent mother is the one missing out, and he is quietly moved.

Luke insists Cade dance with Willa in the kitchen after she plays guitar and sings for them at dinner.

Willa confronts a bully's mother at a friend's birthday party and shoves the boy into the pool for holding Luke under water.

Cade kisses Willa against a hay bale but pulls away suddenly, haunted by Talia once calling him heartless.

Willa tells Summer she wants to pursue a no-strings-attached sexual relationship with Cade for the rest of the summer.

Cade returns home to find Willa and Luke asleep together in his bed and begins imagining a future with her.

Willa catches the same stomach virus as Luke and Cade tenderly nurses her through the worst of it.

Willa proposes a casual sexual arrangement to Cade while sick in bed; he refuses but agrees to stay with her.

Cade sits alone on the porch waiting for Willa to come home, regretting that he told her to stay out with Lance.

Summer pulls Cade aside at Luke's birthday party and tells him plainly that he is in love with Willa.

Winter tells Willa in the hospital hallway that she suffered a miscarriage and is still trapped in an abusive marriage.

Cade drives to Harvey's house and spends the entire night sitting on the floor outside Willa's closed door.

Summer visits Willa in the city and helps her realize that she belongs back on the ranch with Cade and Luke.

Willa drives back to the ranch and finds Cade and Luke waiting outside the house for her return.

Willa and Cade declare their love for each other and commit to raising their family together at Wishing Well Ranch.

The emotional core of the novel is built through a series of private turning points that steadily erode Cade's defenses and deepen Willa's attachment to life on the ranch. Small acts — overhearing Willa defend Luke, watching her sing in the kitchen — shift Cade's internal world before either character admits anything aloud. A stolen kiss by a hay bale and its abrupt end signal how much Cade's past still controls him, while Willa's illness gives them both an unexpected moment of raw tenderness. A shocking disclosure in a hospital hallway — Winter Hamilton's secret about her miscarriage and abusive marriage — is the catalyst that forces Willa to confront her own pregnancy. After a painful separation in which Summer travels to the city to counsel Willa and Cade spends the night on the floor outside her door, both characters face the choice they have been avoiding all summer. Their reunion at the ranch marks the moment they finally choose each other without reservation.