Showing results by author "Marika Ray" in All Categories

I have my fresh start in a new town, this time a widow with a preteen daughter who rolls her eyes enough to make them stay that way. Too bad my past mistake is also here to greet me. Daxon Hellman. Town a----e. Hot young contractor hired to build my house in the woods. It's only when I'm face-to-face with him for the first time that I realize he's the mystery man from two years ago. It's a long story of too many drinks, grief that made me resort to acting out, and an encounter in the dirty bathroom of a bar. Try as I might, I can't forget that night.

As a former professional baseball star, I'm thrown a curveball when my estranged teenage daughter lands on my doorstep during her senior year. Fresh into retirement and back in my small hometown of Blueball, I'm striking out at parenthood and desperate for coaching. Enter Shae Fletcher—once the girl next door I protected, now my daughter's sharp-tongued volleyball coach who seems to have a personal vendetta against me. Heated exchanges mask an undeniable chemistry that eventually ignites into secret late-night encounters.

I'm unemployed and down to my last dollar—thank you, stranger, who bought my coffee when my card was declined this morning. If that wasn't bad enough, I just T-boned the truck belonging to the guy I was meeting on a first date. Ethan Hellman, small-town sweetheart with a secret, and an instant—unbelievable—love for me despite the condition of his truck. It's not that I don't believe in love per se. It's just that I've done the calculations—it won't happen to me. And especially not now when I'm bouncing off rock bottom with the bruises to prove it.

Dalton Cunningham has always been the comic relief in his family. And he's worried they may never see him as anything else, and that they might be right. It might be too late for his father to see Dalton prove himself as an adult, but it's not too late to show his brothers and his mom. His tool of choice? Social media. He's got the marketing down pat, and when he pulls in a classical dancer to build his brand, things really take off. The problem? That dancer is Rae Trask, and she doesn't appreciate some goofy hot wine guy stealing her dance videos and making a mockery of them.

If there's one man on the planet I shouldn't be looking at twice, it's Daire Beneventi. Sure, he's my sister's ex, but he's also the leather jacket to my quilt tote bag. He rides a Harley, frowns at everyone who makes the mistake of glancing at him, and closes real estate deals that have more zeroes than the number of dates I've been on recently. He's all wrong for me, but now I'm tasked with training him at the center we both volunteer at in our off hours. Except, maybe he's not the man I thought he was.

Lincoln Cunningham doesn't do relationships. Mostly because he learned in college that he doesn't do them well. Translation: book smart guys focused on learning the art and science of vineyard tending aren't always girl smart. Lincoln's mother, however, isn't so sure. Her oldest son found his match, and now her sights are set on Linc. Why she insists on setting him up at the Paint it Pal pottery shop is beyond anyone's grasp.

When Isabel "El" Watson applied for a sales job with her company, she had no idea a jelly donut would explode on her blouse, or that her grumpy boss would practically laugh her out of the interview. So when a lady at the local wine festival offers her a sales job on the spot at a new boutique winery, El jumps at the chance. She also jumps at the chance to text with the guy who danced with her at the festival.

The first time I met her, she was running away from her own wedding. The second time I met her, she tried to get me fired from my job. The third time? I had to haul her drunk self off the bar before she completed her amateur—and hot as hell—striptease. She's messy, chaos in human form, and not at all who she claims to be. Everything I've worked so hard for depends on her not screwing things up for me. I should run, not walk, away from her, but all I want to do is strip her layers until I get to the . . . heart—yeah, that's what I was going to say—of who she really is.

You could say I was a successful twenty-four-year-old, if you looked at my house sitting on the edge of a cliff with killer views of the Pacific Ocean. Or my bank account with seven figures from my coaching business. But according to my frenemy, the girl who invited me to her bachelorette party at an exclusive resort in Lake Tahoe, I was just a sad, lonely girl without a man by my side. I'd show her who was living the dream by finding a tall, dark, and handsome man to rock my world for one night.

Callan Hellman. Mr. Nice Guy paramedic. My best friend. He buys my friends flowers when he knows they've had a hard day. Who does that? Callan's the guy every girl wants to date and take home to mama. Not me though. We're just friends. Have been since elementary school. I was the weird girl who kept him laughing with my antics, even when his father abandoned his family and Callan hid those scars behind his smile. But due to my sudden medical diagnosis at twenty-four, Callan insists I move in with him.

I was kind of a genius normally. I'd managed to graduate early and was about to open my own veterinary clinic in my home town of Hell. I clearly had my life together. Until Blaze came back to town, moving slower than a sloth on crutches, more wounded emotionally than physically. We ended up bonding over stray dogs, exes from hell, and oddly enough, shared grief. But helping him get his life back together could cost me my heart . . . and destroy his friendship with my brother.

The town's hottest firefighter just put out the fire in my pants. Literally. Ace Hellman. Star quarterback. Grumpy-as-hell firefighter. Chief pain in my a-s. He's beyond arrogant, inducing women to fake emergencies just to see his sexy swagger as he comes to save them. Not me though. That fire was a total accident. I swear. He and I actually have a long history of hating each other, starting with him ruining my live performance of the Nutcracker in kindergarten and ending with me being the only woman in town under forty whom he hasn't dated. I wear that title with pride.

Prim and proper Oakley Waldo seemed just fine riding solo at work and in her personal life. But when I walk in on her and discover we're neighbors, she'll have to work double time to keep the tension between us at a low simmer. My mission? To bring out the wild woman I know is hiding underneath that tightly wound bun and perfectly unruffled uniform. Only problem is, she seems dead set on discovering the past I vowed to keep hidden away.

Sophia Whittington is the girl next door. And Dillon Cunningham hates her with the fire of a thousand suns . . . Only, it's not hate as much as . . . something else. The things that happened between them in high school, coupled with the loss of his dad, are a big part of what drove Dillon to decide that his future would be far, far away from Solano Creek, his family, and especially, Sophia.

The last person I expected to run into when I moved back home was my ex-wife, Tully Cassio—my high school sweetheart, the love of my life, the woman I hated as much as I still loved. She dumped me nineteen years ago and moved to Hollywood, quickly becoming a star and leaving our marriage in the dust. My dad's last wish included my moving back home and joining the local fire department. I agreed, mostly to be there to take care of Mom. But apparently, I'm not the only one back in Blueball, and now I'm somehow working with Tully on the fundraiser needed to keep the fire station open.

My return home to my family's small town hasn't been easy, but the new contractor I hired—a struggling but strong-willed single mom—keeps stripping her clothes off on the job site, which certainly spices things up. (She swears a spider crawled under her shirt.) She also divulges she's scared of her ex and he's taking her to court for custody of their daughter. I hate to see a woman mistreated, so I step up and marry her so she has a stronger case in front of the judge. Temporarily, of course.

The tattooed stranger rode a motorcycle while helping me collect stray cats. My boots gave me blisters and he carried me on his back. I needed help and he didn't ask questions before assisting me. Could there be a more perfect man? It just made sense to lick him and claim him as mine right then and there. I probably should have asked him more questions before we slept together. Like, what's your last name? Where've you been living before moving here to my hometown? Is my older brother your best friend? Those kinds of questions. But sadly, I didn't. And now I'm staring at two pink lines.

He's a tattooed, blue-eyed jerk who has no business being a single dad. He's also my next-door neighbor, and after negotiations, my grumpy employer for the summer. I don't put up with cocky males normally, and I certainly won't put up with that man making noise at all hours of the day and night while he builds his glamp-ground. I offer advice, but the stubborn fool just turns his tractor on to drown me out. He returns the favor by pushing my buttons and making me so angry I can't see straight. And I really want to be able to see his gorgeous body in those well-worn jeans and backward hat.

I've been in love with my best friend since the day I met her freshman year of high school. She was a halo of sunshine on a rainy day, pulling me out of the shadows and making me feel like life was one big roller-coaster ride of excitement. Until the day we graduated and she left on the back of a Harley with some guy who didn't deserve her, middle fingers in the air. Twelve years later, she's back in Blueball, as if she hadn't broken my heart and never looked back.

He's a dashing millionaire who thinks everything in life is one big joke. He's also my new neighbor, and after a humiliating experience in the cemetery that is my backyard, he becomes my shadow, showing up everywhere just to annoy me. I'm not a fan of happy people. They bother me with their constant grins and rainbows coming out of their ears, and Vander Booth is the king of smiles. Despite my efforts to scare him away with both my profession as an undertaker and my general need for frowning through most of my workday, he sticks around like a bad case of poison ivy.