When the Smoke Clears

By: Jewel E. Ann

From USA Today bestselling author Jewel E. Ann comes a bittersweet second-chance romance about deferred love, impossible timing, and the courage of choosing happiness after devastating loss.

Everleigh Reichart and William Landry fell hard—and far too fast. Their weeklong romance ended the moment Will, a twenty-nine-year-old firefighter, learned the truth: Everleigh was seventeen. He walked away to protect them both. Destiny had other plans.

Eleven years later, Will is still running into burning buildings, while Everleigh has become a brilliant psychiatrist. When a house fire strands her on his land, their old feelings ignite like patient embers. But she’s desperate to keep concealing the childhood trauma that has shaped her life, and he’s struggling under the weight of his father’s terminal illness. Too soon, the strain snaps their fragile reunion, flinging them farther apart than ever before.

Now Everleigh must face her past to salvage a future with Will…if he can accept that loving her includes the broken parts too. But first, he needs to come and find her—this time by faith, not fate.

©2026 by Jewel E. Ann. (P)2026 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.