Road Not Taken

KELSIEI write happily ever afters for a living.There’s only one problem-I stopped believing in them years ago.After one toxic relationship too many, I’m done chasing the kind of love I put on the page. My newest manuscript is going nowhere, my mother is determined to fix my love life, and Reed Hollow is too small to make a bad decision without the entire town hearing about it before breakfast.Then Colt Huntington walks into the diner.My brother’s best friend. My secret first love. The boy who left eight years ago in the back of a cop car and never looked back.He’s older now. Harder. Broodier. The sharp edges only make him more impossible to resist. But he didn’t come home for me. He came to bury the grandmother who raised him, settle her estate, and return to the successful life he built hundreds of miles away.I should hate him for disappearing.Instead, one look brings every feeling I buried roaring back.When someone breaks into my house and the past I thought I escaped starts closing in, Colt becomes the one person who makes me feel safe. One kiss turns into stolen nights, whispered confessions, and a secret neither of us is ready to share with my brother.For the first time in months, the words begin to flow again.So does the hope I swore I’d never let myself feel.But Colt has already decided Reed Hollow can never be home, and I refuse to beg someone to choose me.Even when he’s the only man I’ve ever truly wanted.COLTI swore I’d never come back.Reed Hollow holds every memory I spent eight years trying to outrun: the mother who taught me I was worthless, the future ripped away from me, the best friend I abandoned, and the girl I loved enough to leave behind.Kelsie Lynch was always off-limits.My best friend’s little sister. The one person who saw something good in me before I could see it in myself. The only woman I’ve ever loved.Leaving nearly destroyed me. Seeing her again proves I never moved on.I came home for a funeral, not a second chance. My company, my house, and the life I fought to build are waiting in Florida. I only need to survive a few days in Reed Hollow without reopening wounds that never healed.Then Kelsie is threatened.Protecting her is easy. Walking away from her again is not.She says she would rather have a few days with me than spend the rest of her life wondering what we could have been. I know exactly how this ends-with me leaving and both of us shattered-but I’ve never been strong enough to deny her.Not when every touch feels like coming home. Not when she looks at me like I’m still the boy worth saving. Not when, for the first time, I can see the future I was too afraid to want.But secrets never stay buried in a town like Reed Hollow. When the truth about our past and our relationship comes out, the people we love turn against us, and every ugly belief I have about myself rises to the surface.Kelsie deserves roots, family, and forever.I’ve only ever known how to leave.This time, I’ll have to decide whether to take the safe road back to the life I built-or risk everything for the woman who has always felt like home.Road Not Taken is a steamy, emotional small-town romance featuring brother’s best friend, secret first love, a self-made protective hero, a romance-author heroine, buried secrets, family drama, suspense, open-door heat, and a hard-earned happily ever after.