A beaming Syd coaxes her reclusive lighthouse keeper to venture out in public after his plastic surgery, but she soon discovers that his scars are more than skin deep. What's more, she learns about the darkest secret that he will not confront. Elsewhere, Joanie remains in denial as she ignores her business and drowns her sorrows in booze, a practice that is distancing her frustrated fiance . In addition, Jim refuses to take his cold lying down and conducts his veterinary duties from his sickbed while Robbie scores points with the cute mother of one of his adolescent hockey players.

When Syd applies for a grant for her clinic from a prestigious medical foundation, she meets a mysterious man who claims to be her father -- and as she gets to know him, his story about his relationship with her late mother begins to make more and more sense. Meanwhile, as Jim senses that Syd and Joanie are snooping around about the circumstances of Syd's birth, he treats a Lhasa apso dog that refuses to eat. Elsewhere, Robbie gets heat from the ex-husband just when it seems his romance seems to be blossoming with the attractive mother of one of his pee-wee hockey players and Joanie reluctantly hires a sensitive, temperamental baker.

Disclosures about politician Joe Connelly disillusion Syd, who's still battling a duplictious drug company; the Robbie-Tina romace runs a rocky road.

Political & romantic mattars busy Syd, who's in D.C. with Rep. Connelly for a showdow with a drug company; diverse cries ensnarl Robbie, Tina -and the hansens'dog.