Beauty therapist Suzy Whitbread is tired of working in a salon that is going nowhere. Fancying a summer free of responsibilities, she packs in her job and returns to the village in which she grew up. As a teenager, she was frowned upon by the small-minded locals, not least for her close friendship with Clifton McKenna, a successful horse trainer with a somewhat overbearing wife with very expensive tastes. On arriving back in the village, she finds that Clifton has been confined to a wheelchair after a riding accident, and is determined to help him recover. He has always been the one in control, but now his sudden vulnerable position allows Suzy to exercise a little dominance over him. But with Clifton's son Jem having designs on Suzy, father/son rivalries are played out and sizzling sexual tensions become the catalyst for some very hot gossip.