Sterling Falls

I’d been in Curmudgeon Bakery for one of those lemon baby-Bundt cakes I’d been craving since I found out I was pregnant. The draw had nothing to do with the baker himself. Tall, tatted, and edgy, he looked more like a biker than a man who makes baked goods. I hardly knew him other than taking a tumble in a rainstorm in front of his shop... and then tossing myself at him after he rescued me. We shared a moment, but it’s not what you’d think. Months later, he delivered my baby among his cookies and cakes. Talk about a second chance encounter.

Love wasn’t part of the blueprint when high school sweethearts reunite in their small town. But this former military man never forgot the girl he left behind and he’s more determined than ever for a second chance to rebuild their relationship brick by brick and heart by heart. Getting locked in the men’s restroom during my mother’s funeral wasn’t exactly how I expected to run into my high school sweetheart. The one who got away. The one who broke my heart.

Love was a losing battle for this country music darling and a single dad, baseball star until one night brings them together and one small town sets the playing field for a possible winning streak. They call me Lady Boss. Maneater. Queen. But beneath the makeup, blond wig, and glitzy costumes, I’m just a country girl who likes to sing. I don’t hate men, I’m just struggling to find a good one. I’ve learned my lesson. Fool me once, and it will never, ever happen again. So I’m baffled when I meet Ford Sylver.

Love doesn’t break us; it makes us whole, my nana used to say. However, one minute, my world is set on fire, literally. The next, I am raising a six-year-old as a single mom without a clear path ahead of us. No place to live. No job. No money. I’m returning to Sterling Falls to claim what’s mine, then there will be no looking back on this beloved small town, a place I consider a handful of sand in the hourglass of my life. Then again, Clay Sylver has shaken up that ancient time clock. The silver fox in his forties is a bit cocky, but solid in every way that matters.

These former friends might be faking their engagement, but revealed crushes prove there might not be anything fictional about their arrangement.

I wasn’t supposed to love him. I wasn’t even supposed to acknowledge him. But my entire life, I’ve had heart-eyes for my oldest brother’s former best friend, Cortland Haven. I can’t help it that boys can be stupid, and a feud broke apart a long-time friendship and divided once-close families. Now, we’re older and wiser. And with a little over a decade age gap between us, and a divide greater than that between our families, my heart still hasn’t gotten the memo. No, that fickle organ has other plans for Cortland and me.

Quiet. Serious. Protective. Words Stone Sylver would use to describe himself. And yet, something in his classic blue eyes said he was so much more. Buried beneath the years of raising his younger siblings and working as a small-town sheriff was a man looking for love.