Only By Your Touch by Catherine Anderson

              Sigh.  If only I could spend my life reading good books.  Reading good books and get paid for it I mean.  I do spend much of my life reading.  Sometimes when I am really involved in a story, I have a hard time leaving.  Only By Your Touch is one of those books I had a hard time putting down when I had other things to do.        

                Chloe is a divorced mother who has moved to a new town in order to take a dispatcher job.  Now that they are settled and away from her abusive ex-husband, Chloe has given her son, Jeremy, a puppy.  They only have the puppy for a short time before it becomes very ill.  The local vet refuses to help because Chloe is not able to afford to pay him right away.  Desperate, Jeremy takes his puppy to Ben, the local outcast.  Ben has a bad reputation based on myths, bad information, and old grudges.  People stay away from him which works for Ben as he prefers his solitude.  Actually his solitude is a necessity.  Ben cares for wounded wild animals which he is not legally supposed to do.  When Jeremy shows up, Ben is not happy as he fears his secret will be revealed.

                Ben cannot resist helping the puppy.  There is one hitch.  In order to cure the puppy, he must stay with Ben.  During Jeremy’s visits and Chloe’s efforts to work for Ben to help with the costs, Ben quickly finds himself caring for the mother and son.  He fights the urge to get close, but he cannot help himself.  Then there is the problem of another great secret he is keeping.  Ben is a healer.  He can heal with his touch.

                There are a lot of different things going on in this book.  The full story of the abusive ex-husband, a stalker, an unknown person wounding animals, and an ill mother are just some of the things that are involved in this story.  With so much going on, one would think the book would get confusing.  It does not.  Everything works smoothly and comes together in the end.