Ava Mercer is the director of the Mercer Animal Shelter. After her father's death, she alone guards this land and a group of homeless cats and dogs. The shelter is dilapidated and financially strapped, but it is the legacy of her father's life and the home she refuses to give up. One night, during a thunderstorm, Ava bravely rescued an injured kitten from the edge of a cliff, her hands raw and bloody. She brought the kitten back to the shelter to treat its wounds, only to be beaten and vandalized by a burly man in black sent by the real estate developer Victor Caldwell. The medicine was destroyed, the animals were frightened, and the kitten's wound reopened. In despair, Ava rushed into the rainstorm with the kitten in her arms and found the only Bennett Emergency Animal Hospital with its lights still on. The hospital's owner, Bennett Hayes, is a young veterinarian. He appears calm and restrained, with professional and gentle techniques, and completed the treatment for the kitten in the middle of the night. Ava felt a sense of reassurance for the first time in a long time. When Bennett escorted her back to the shelter, they bumped into Victor Caldwell waiting at the door with his son Dylan Caldwell. Victor attempted to force Ava to marry Dylan, in order to seize the shelter's land under the guise of marriage. Dylan is frivolous and arrogant, treating Ava as an accessory to show off.
