Steam and Second Chances

A widowed cafe owner. A fire captain who stopped hoping. One Michigan town with five weeks to save what it loves.Adele Osborne has spent five years building a life that can’t be knocked over again. She opens the Hearth Cafe before dawn, teaches music at the elementary school, plays piano on Sunday mornings, and raises her son alone. It’s a small life, and small has felt safe.A letter arrives from the new landlord and the rent nearly doubles. The deposit’s due 3 days before Christmas. And the cafe her parents opened has until then to find money her family doesn’t have.Emmett Foss answers the call when the espresso machine starts smoking. He fixes it with a four-dollar gasket he happens to be carrying, and he doesn’t tell her how many nights he’s driven past her cafe window. Six years ago, Emmett lost people in a fire he couldn’t reach in time. He lost his marriage in the quiet that came after. He’s spent every season since making himself easy to overlook.When the pastor asks the two of them to co-chair a Christmas caroling fundraiser, neither one can find a good reason to say no.Five weeks of lists and permits and cold parking lots. Five weeks of an eleven-year-old boy who keeps turning up at the fire station with questions about the father he’s starting to forget. Five weeks for two people to decide whether wanting something is worth what it costs to lose it.Adele knows what she has to lose. So does Emmett. And the whole town is about to find out what the Hearth is worth.The Hearth Cafe Christmas Series, Book 1Steam and Second Chances a closed-door Christian romance with a guaranteed happily ever after, written for readers who want faith on the page, a town worth living in, and a love story that takes its time.-Small-Town Christmas romance-Widowed Heroine, Firefighter Hero-Single mother and a man who knows he’s not her son’s father-Slow burn, closed door, clean and wholesome-Grief, grace, and a faith that survive doubt-Seasoned romance, both leads in their forties-Saving the family business-A meddling matchmaker and exactly one blanket