It is the opening day at Hummingbird Hill, Maxi Taylor's Bed and Breakfast. As the first guest arrives, Maxi hears a scream from the backyard and finds Hannah with a puppy that she feels is dying. Assured that the puppy will be all right, Hannah's plea to keep the puppy is complicated by a boy who arrives to claim that the Collie puppy is his. Maxi's daughter Lorene arrives and concern for the puppy shifts to the boy, Trevor, obviously malnourished and in fear of being sent back to the puppy-mill foster home from which he had recently fled. A trip to the puppy mill with a social worker finds the house and barn that housed the dogs burned to the ground. Touched by Trevor's plight and in a few months expecting a child of her own, Lorene ignores the concerns of the family as she seeks to become Trevor's foster parent. Many complications lie ahead for Maxi Taylor, her family, and friends, as Trevor seeks to find his 'forever home'. (A 'forever home's the term animal shelters use as they find a permanent home for those in their care.)