The Christmas Shepherd

Living and working on an acreage outside the town of Warm Springs, Sally Brown is a successful children's book author and illustrator. Just before Thanksgiving, she is given the okay by her publisher for her next project, the first draft due by Christmas, centered on her German shepherd, Buddy, and the luck he brings to people around him. Buddy is the last connection Sally and her son Bryan have to Sally's husband, US Marine Corps Sergeant Dylan Brown, who died from a heart attack two years ago. Dylan discovered Buddy as a puppy abandoned when he was stationed in Beirut. During a thunderstorm of which he is scared, Buddy is able to escape from the property and run away. Getting Buddy back for the holidays is even more important this year with Bryan, following in father's footsteps, currently stationed in Afghanistan. After several frantic weeks with few leads, Sally learns of Buddy being found, rehabilitated, rescued and now adopted by the Greens - father Mark and preteen daughter Emma - of Waltham, an hour away. About the same time of Dylan's passing, Mark's wife passed away, Mark, a former Madison Avenue ad man turned coffee shop owner/operator, moving himself and Emma to Waltham at the start of this school year to be closer to family, namely Mark's sister Greta, and for more of a focus on home life. With the law on their side, Mark wants Emma to make the decision on what to do about Buddy seeing as to the difficulties she's had in her recent life, including troubles making friends in Waltham. Giving up Buddy will be difficult for Emma. But Buddy's journey from Warm Springs to Waltham may have been orchestrated by the cosmos in making the story in Sally's upcoming book a reality as, in spending time together in their negotiation, Sally and Mark, unspoken, start to fall for each other, if only each is ready to open her/his heart to the possibility of love again.