"Do you love me?"
He reformed her question, and her stomach knotted. Now, he asked too much of her.
"I asked you first," she whispered. She swallowed her regret, a wall erecting between them. He wanted those words from her, but she couldn't say them. For in saying those three words, she'd commit herself to this, to him, and that was the trouble.
She'd said the vows - to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, 'til death do them part. She'd said them, though, with a gun at her back and a stranger's hand in hers. By admitting she loved him, the words took on meaning and held...

"What are we?" she asked. He ran one hand up and down her back. "I think they call this falling in love." ----- Ian McKinney's wife tried to kill him, and that made up his mind for good. He's out of the dating game. He has friends, a comfortable job, other things to fill his life. Then Allison Hoff walks into it. She's never recovered from the death of her spouse and is now trying to somehow move on. Maybe if she loses a few pounds, builds her self-esteem ... But when she asks him to fill in as her date to the Fourth of July police dance, what seems like a beneficial arrangement to them both...

Her eyelids pulled closed. More than anything else, she wanted romance. Romance. That thing that made a man do extraordinary things for the woman he loved just because he loved her. And to live, for just one moment, the life of novels and fairytales. ----- Wealthy businessman, Ludwig Fabrinni, has a closet full of expensive suits, not to mention a cushy job and anything else money can buy. The director at a well-known publication company, he's surrounded himself with textbooks, encyclopedias, and educational materials. But when his boss puts him in charge of the new romance department, his...

"I've always loved you, Colton Ryder, but I'm not sure that's enough. I hate this town. I hate these memories. And just because you kiss me and my mind blanks doesn't mean I can overcome them, doesn't mean I can simply pick up my life as it is and return to Richland. All I have here is turmoil, and all I want to do is forget." ----- Rylie Shepherd's come home to Richland, a town she never thought to see again. To a flood of bad memories and broken dreams. A family splintered and reassembled by death. To pain and heartache and years of poverty and loss. To Colton Ryder, town war hero, old...

He smiled slightly. "I want all the strings. When you go home next week, I want to get in my car and drive all the way there just to see you. I want to ask permission for you to come for the weekend. Whatever it takes." I coughed. "Wh-why? I'm not rich or important or any of the things you're used to." "Maybe not, and maybe I wouldn't have asked you out before. But now I have, and I can't possibly go back to my life before Lilac." ----- Apollo Adderly was the most beautiful sight a girl could ever behold, and he just might make this false vacation worth all the trouble for Liane Arnoult....

The humid air seemed to suck the life out of the conversation. He glanced at Aurelia. -If you need anything ...- he said, his voice dropping. Her lips quivered, and his thoughts scattered. What she needed she couldn't have. What she wanted was forbidden for them both. ----- Jacob Flynn lost his wife and son in childbirth and fled south to Florida to escape the memories. But in, Aurelia Cotton, the pregnant wife of a kind man who took him in, they come back to him. She's so very beautiful. Helplessly in love, he finds himself pressed closer and closer to the ultimate act of betrayal, when...

She smiled and reached for his face, her fingertips dusting his jaw. His hand fell to a place between her shoulder blades. "I'm crazy about you, too," she said. "I don't have to spend days with you to know how great you are." ----- Stuck at the grocery store with no way to get home, September Blessing accepts the only help available - that of cute bag handler, James Davis. After all, he went to Ferris High, has a job, and seems nice. But a day later, a string of unforeseen circumstances and the start of a horrible rumor tears their true love apart. It looks like the only way for them to be...

She rushed to her feet, tears pooling in her eyes, and he drank it in - the flush of her cheeks, her clenched fists, her trembling lip. He forced himself to not look away. This once, Nick, this one time see what you've done. With a sob, she fled the room, and his heart ripped out of his chest. ----- Nick Sawyer's life is spinning out of control. Consumed by hatred for his father, he makes a fateful decision - he'll live life on his own terms. They don't need him anyway. But running away from his problems takes him to a place where dying would be so much easier, and so starving, barely alive,...