Showing results by author "Jean Brashear" in All Categories

It’s the first Christmas in Sweetgrass Springs, Texas for several newcomers who have found a real home for the first time—or found home again. As Jackson Gallagher works to save his hometown from withering away by relocating his business empire there, the only gift he really wants is to marry the teenage sweetheart he thought he’d lost forever—but Veronica Patton Butler has other hearts to care for, however much she loves Jackson. Bridger Calhoun is more than ready to make Penelope Gallagher his bride, but however much she adores him, Shark Girl is dragging her heels on tying the knot.

Clarice Sutton, daughter of privilege, was raised to lead society, but that life feels empty, and she's taken a job her parents abhor: police department psychologist. Santino "Saint" Valdez—hardnosed detective who is anything but saintly—is under investigation by Internal Affairs for killing a predator who richly deserved it. Now he's supposed to spill his guts to Miss Prim and Prissy? No way—not ever.

Yet the powerful attraction both feel from their first meeting complicates both their lives, and time spent together only makes their improbable bond grow.

Hollywood’s hottest heartthrob Liam Sullivan has escaped the paparazzi and celebrity gossips after a sensational tragedy, reexamining his high-flying lifestyle and his priorities. In disguise, traveling through the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina, he encounters a rail-thin, starving woman who has lost everything but the dilapidated cabin where she once lived with her grandmother in happier days. Raina Donovan is determined to make her stand there, but winter is coming, and Liam cannot desert her until he can make her safe, however much she tries to make him leave.

Steph Hargrove was a bombshell, an intrepid woman operating in the business world with guts, brains and daring. She was accustomed to going after whatever she wanted until a man she called friend betrayed her and the company she’d helped build. Since that time, she’s been a shadow of the wild, wicked woman who’d carved a swath through her world. Gavin O’Neill is an artisan with wood, a gardener, a restorer of battered homes and a savior of strays. When first he meets the wounded woman who postures as invincible and worldly, the sadness in her eyes draws him even more than her lush figure does.

Jeanette Carson has been a fixture as a waitress in Ruby’s Cafe ever since high school. Walker Roundtree is country music’s brightest star, known by all for his laid-back charm and irresistible appeal to the opposite sex. Ever since his first visit to Sweetgrass Springs, there have been verbal fireworks between him and Jeanette as she proved to be the only woman immune to his charm. Now their paths have crossed in the outside world, and they’re seeing each other in a new light. Fireworks of a very different sort are sparking the sky—but then Walker’s world is upended by a tragedy.

Mitch Gallagher is a loner, down to the bone. Banished at sixteen from everything and everyone he held dear, he's an intensely private man whose rusty, unused heart long ago gave up on love. Fragile Perrie Matheson is on the run to protect her beloved son. Too ill to travel further with a winter storm on the way, she has no choice but to gamble her child's safety on a man who wants only to be left alone. But during days spent together in the mountain cabin, Mitch and Perrie each find surprises in store.

For Michael Cavanaugh’s entire life, his mother has kept a shocking secret: that she was married once before she married his father, and she gave birth to that man’s child. Stunned that the mother who’d loved him so would abandon a child and furious with his mother’s deceit, he sets out to find the older brother he has always wanted. Ian McLaren has a full plate: a wife he adores, a baby on the way, a ranch to run and a town that depends on him. When a stranger arrives in their small town with the staggering news that he and Ian share a mother, his world tilts off its axis.

Jackson Gallagher's teenage rebellion cost him everything: his home, his family and the girl who could only love him in secret. Seventeen years later, a wildly successful tycoon, Jackson is drawn back to Sweetgrass Springs to confront his past: the father who banished him, the small town that turned its back on him...and the woman he has never been able to forget.

FBI agent Alex Sandoval has never forgiven himself for not protecting a young girl from seeing her mother murdered during his first hostage negotiation twelve years ago. Now Jade Butler is a cop herself, assigned to a prestigious multi-agency task force hunting for the killer of several young girls in Austin, Texas—and Alex is the agent in charge of the case. They never met all those years ago, but Jade recognizes his voice as the one she still hears in her dreams, the voice that has comforted her through many a terrifying flashback.

Gifted pastry chef Spike Ridley knows most everything about cooking, but the recipe for home has eluded her. Have mixer will travel has been her motto, and now she has lost the one person who’d loved her from childhood. When she crashes into famed quarterback Tate Ransom, life takes an abrupt turn. Tate has suffered a deep personal loss of his own, and coupled with a career-threatening injury, the ground beneath him is shifting. Forced into a road trip toward uncertain futures, the snarky sprite and celebrity jock get glimpses beneath the other’s veneer, and what they find surprises them.

Special Forces veteran Gabriel Coronado is haunted by nightmares that keep him in the shadows, exiling himself from human companionship as he wrestles with his demons. Walking the night to outrun his memories of those he wasn't able to save, he comes to the rescue of a valiant woman who puts herself in danger to save a young runaway. Jilly Sullivan's life is dedicated to making a difference for the poor, championing one hopeless cause after another. When a desperate criminal overpowers her and a nameless hero saves her from harm, both their courses are altered forever.

Vanessa Porter's brilliant career as a hotelier goes up in flames after a scandal, and she pours herself into rehabbing an old mansion to become a boutique hotel, doing much of the work herself because her funds are running out. Hotshot adventure photographer Dane Sullivan's career is grounded after a near-death fall, and he's no longer sure he wants the life of death-defying risk that energized him for so long. While he's recovering and assessing his options, his kid sister Jilly volunteers him to help her friend Vanessa with handyman skills he and his brothers learned from their dad.