Ashes & Embers

A series of weather and road mishaps leave me trapped in the middle of a blizzard with a complete stranger. In the back of a pickup truck. For 48 freakin' hours. A stranger with long hair, tattoos, and rippling with muscle. A stranger with an insanely sexy voice and a wicked smile that turns my insides to jelly. A stranger who holds me in his arms, calms me, and then sets a fire in me that I can't put out.

She takes my breath away; she is so beautifully damaged. Yes, I had broken her, ravished her life, and destroyed her happiness. I brought her to the ultimate despair. I was responsible for all the pain and suffering that now brought her to her knees in front of me. Broken. Hopeless. Reckless in her agony. She is a mirror of my own tortured soul. But what I took away I can give back, in ways she cannot even begin to imagine. She is everything right in all my wrongs.

Storm's younger cousin. Vandal's little brother. You've met him in the background. The sweet one. The nice one. The one they can all rely on. In short, the good one. He's a tattoo artist. He plays metal and classical music - on the violin. He's got a body built for sin. And he's 24. In comes Ivy. She's a 36-year-old single mom who hasn't dated in 18 years. All she wanted was a tattoo. She got a whole lot more.

A social experiment (a scary but exciting concept): marry a total stranger, live together for six months, and journal everything. Feelings. Fights. All of it. After six months, we each get $50,000 in exchange for our journals, whether we stay married or not. But the goal is to commit to the experience and see if the relationship experts could put together the perfect matches. I have never been lucky in love. This was my chance to find my soulmate. I couldn't wait to meet the man the experts felt was perfect for me.

Evie: I met him in a snowstorm.... We spent 48 hours trapped in the back of his pickup truck. We fought. We touched. We fell. Hard. Storm: She literally crashed into my life.... The last thing I wanted was a relationship. Especially with a quirky chick who drove me insane. But something about her got under my skin, and into my heart. And I had to have her. All of her. Now. Falling in love in the back of a truck, just the two of us, was easy. Dealing with psycho fans, jealous exes, and demons from the past...not so easy.

Living the life most women only dream about, I was madly in love with my soulmate - Asher Valentine - amazing husband, loving father, and rock's favorite kick-ass frontman. A man who loved me every day, in every way, since we first met as teens. We were blessed with a beautiful daughter who was the light of our life. My all-female rock band was tearing up the charts. Then tragedy struck, and I lost it all. Now all I have is a stack of journals, an antique key, and a big black void where my memories should be. Used to be.