Ellen Webster, professor of history, can't help but fantasize about her next door neighbor Kate Foster- after all, she sees her on the evening news every night.

Sexy and smart, Kate is Ellen's dream girl, but the dynamic TV newscaster doesn't know she exists. Struggling with a steadily worsening self-image and at a loss as to how to turn her life around, Ellen decides to take time out to finish the book she has always wanted to write. But a rainy night and near-tragedy changes everything when Kate is involved in an automobile accident and turns to Ellen for help. Withdrawing from the world, Kate comes to depend upon Ellen for far more than she realizes-until the day Ellen tells her that she is leaving on sabbatical.

Ellen and Kate's journey takes them beyond the transitory nature of external beauty and into the heart of what is meaningful in a relationship, the inner beauty of each other.