Coming out of a self-imposed emotional freeze is a long and painful process.

For Casey Riggs, she wasn't prone to looking back. It was too painful and full of betrayal by those she trusted most. She had worked very hard to pack the pain and fury into a box and stow it into a part of her mind she didn't want to ever see again. When she's kidnapped in the few weeks her father has left. He's the only person in the world who never lied to her, never betrayed her, he's all she has.

When she's rescued from her attacker, she's already shut down and refuses to cooperate in any way with her rescuers. The Accord medics are stymied and are ready to send her to a Rehab Planet for the rest of her natural life.
Luckily, someone makes another call, and she gets two weeks on a farm. Insert eyeroll here.

Emerys Maerlon is assigned to guard a Human female at his old friend's farm as part of her therapy before she's sent off to a rehab planet. The Elnollian is more than ready to get it over with and head home to find his mate. He's ready. His race don't do premarital sex. They have the utmost respect for themselves and for those they eventually take for a mate.

Through caring for something outside herself, Casey learns to begin unpacking her past and begins to discover the new world around her and her place in it. A place that may include a man with beads in his hair.