Golden Christmas

Chloe is a veterinary nurse with a broken heart. One cold December night she discovers a golden retriever tied up outside her clinic, and she takes him home and names him Rusty. She hopes having him around will help her recover.

Rusty has his own plan. He wants to get back to his real owner, and he leads Chloe to Dr. Luke Harrison, a pediatrician who has kept the world at a distance since his wife died. Luke has no interest in Christmas, and none in the woman who arrives at his door with his dog.

Rusty keeps pushing the two of them together, and before long Chloe and Luke have reasons to see each other again and again. Each carries a deep loss, and each has to decide whether to let someone close.

This is a Christmas romance with a dog at its center, warm in tone and set in the cold of December. The matchmaking is gentle and the mood is cozy, with grief in the background rather than the foreground. It suits a reader looking for a seasonal love story about two lonely people and one determined retriever.