Showing results by author "Helen Gray" in All Categories

After spending years caring for her ailing parents and teaching art in a Springfield, Missouri high school, Jasmine (Jazzy) Dwyer no longer has any expectation of a committed relationship. Yet, beneath her self-sufficient exterior, a lonely heart longs for such a bond. Steve Prescott made a mistake that cost him his family and years of his life. Now he’s a free man, working hard, and doing everything he can to make amends, but is unable to forgive himself. When a man with whom he once worked is murdered, and he is questioned, he sets out to prove who really killed the man. Can a man with ...

Proposing to a stranger is strange. Right? Paige Kimball is manipulated into the ridiculous stunt of proposing to the next man who enters the hotel lobby. Shock follows when the Lake Ozark businessman accepts, gives her a ring, and walks away. More shock follows when Paige learns that Holt Taylor is the father of the twin girls who are disrupting her band class with their rowdy behavior. When Holt asks her to befriend his motherless daughters and spend time with them outside of school, she can’t refuse the request. But can Paige maintain this kind of close contact and resist falling for a...

Having lost her parents, and in danger of losing her ranch to an unscrupulous opportunist, Jacinda (Jackie) Laughton is surviving in Dodge City’s heyday, but not without a load of guilt and estrangement from God and the church. In desperation she and her best friend have resorted to banditry. Donning disguises, they are the popular “Whip and Blade” who hold up the lender’s stagecoach runs, keeping the money they need and distributing the rest to more of the man’s victims. No one suspects they are young women. When Hoyt Travers, a Texas Ranger, arrives in Dodge and shows an ...

COMING HOME IS BITTERSWEET FOR RILEY BLAKE In the aftermath of the Great Depression, Riley must go home and start over. But it won’t but easy for a man with a troubled past to win the trust of his Missouri hometown. Especially when Jolene Delaney, his first love, seems to believe that the new rumors about him are true. After Riley broke her heart, Jolene poured her energies into teaching school and caring for her father and little sister. But she knows something is missing from her life. Especially when she comes face-to-face with Riley again. Can he convince Jolene that he's truly a ...

Nurse practitioner Tara Landry had no choice but to quit her job and return to her small hometown in rural Maryland to care for her ailing parents, even though it broke her heart to break her engagement to Glen and leave him behind. When she needs to locate her cousin’s missing brother, she knows only person who is capable of the kind of help they need—her ex-fiancé. In spite of her conflicting feelings, she calls him. Glen Porter, Chief of Police of a town in another part of the state, is stunned—but pleased—when Tara contacts him. He agrees to look into the case, but then decides...

A Romantic Mystery The teacher had apparently walked in on a robbery and been killed in his classroom Resource Officer Lanell Rhodes is determined to see justice for the young man. Pilot Connor Prescott is shocked to learn of the death of the young teacher his sister has been dating. But when he arrives at the school and seeks information, he is warned by the attractive Resource Officer that he is not to meddle in police business. Lanell and Connor share a common goal of finding justice for the victim, but can they overcome their differences and share a future together as well?

BURNED OUT COP TRAVIS BAKER IS LOOKING FOR NEW DIRECTION IN HIS LIFE. After leaving law enforcement, Travis takes a job as temporary handyman at the Quinn landscaping business and gift shop that two sisters are try to run now that the father is dying of cancer. But he doesn't figure on getting involved in constructing a living Christmas tree, or his heart getting entangled with Reagan Quinn. Reagan has too much on her plate, operating the businesses and dealing with grief over her father, and confusion at the inevitable changes confronting her. Can Travis convince her that they can form a ...

Can a poor misfit be accepted back in her hometown? Haley West has returned to Skyview, Missouri, to look after her family. Her plans do not include another disastrous venture into romance. Widower Neil Bronson wants nothing more than to assist his ailing parents—and to know if the ministry is in God’s plans for his life. Still grieving, he is determined to shield his heart from the possibility of losing another person he loves. When Haley and Neil meet on her mail route, sparks of the present begin to outweigh clouds of the past. As they tackle neighborhood and church problems together...

LYNN BUCHANAN IS LOOKING FOR HER BIRTH MOTHER After losing her parents and learning she is adopted, Lynn travels to the SE section of Missouri, known as the bootheel, to search for her mother. When she tangles with handsome Mitch Stratton, her plans and dreams are thrown into a tailspin. Mitch must focus on keeping his cotton gin operating and providing jobs for his employees. Meeting the newfound sister of his best friend is a complication to his plans--and his heart.

CALLIE BLAKE CAN'T AFFORD TO FALL IN LOVE She's too busy helping her family survive the Depression. When she returns home to their Missouri farm, meeting her childhood crush, Trace Gentry, stirs up old dreams she tries hard to ignore. Kind, handsome and wealthy, Trace would never be interested in a poor girl like her—would he? Successful businessman Trace is crazy about Callie, and he knows she thinks she's not good enough for him. He's clueless how to woo her—until he devises a way to prove his love to Callie—and make all her dreams come true.

JAN BLEVINS (the identity she is using) IS NOT IN HOT SPRINGS TO FIND LOVE. She has her own CPA firm in Indiana, but is in Arkansas to help the parents of her childhood friend audit their businesses and figure out who killed their son. When she meets Park Ranger Kyler Winston, she finds it hard to ignore the unexpected attraction that flares between them. Kyler senses that Jan’s interest in their local murder case is deeper than she professes. More questions arise when he sees her with the victim’s wealthy father. Yet, in spite of his suspicions about her motives, he is strangely drawn ...

Police Officer Carly Prescott has endured loss, but now throws herself into enforcing the law, volunteering at women’s shelters and seeing to the needs of others. When a friend goes missing, the case extends into another jurisdiction, and she meets successful poultry farmer, Brody Macklin, who stirs dreams and feelings she tries to ignore as he becomes involved in the search for their mutual friend, and then for her killer. Brody has known love, and the loss of that love through death. He can’t risk another such loss. He doesn’t count on the lovely cop who sends his heart into a ...

Brooke Whitney is seeking a haven, not love. Having abdicated her industrialist father’s manipulation, and the questionable business practices demanded of her in his huge corporation, Brooke accepts a job as secretary to a Missouri rancher. But her employer and his small daughter soon begin to complicate her life in ways that involve her heart. Rancher Barrett Channing has agreed to spend several months on an agricultural work assignment in South America and needs full-time office management while he’s gone. Since losing his beloved wife in a plane crash, he has no plans to risk another...

JASON STEVENS IS A BAD RISK FOR MARRIAGE Fear of repeating his father's abusive behavior toward his mother has him convinced he will live his life as a bachelor. As a Missouri Highway Patrolman, he certainly doesn't need the complications of fiery Veda, the sister of the man his sister married, stirring up his emotions. All young widow Veda wants is to start over and run a business of her own, in a location distant from the Kirby family's illegal activities. Can these two opposites find common ground and happiness together?

After colliding with a fleeing thief and having her home invaded, Erin Stuart is determined to help the security guard/undercover DEA agent stop the flow of drugs being trafficked through the mall where her optometry clinic is located. Miles Jarrett finds Erin’s insights valuable, but his growing feelings for her threaten his heart. As clues lead to multiple suspects, can they reveal the drug kingpin—and live to tell the story?

When Ginger Brewer, director of the Ozarkian Home Health Care agency, arrives for a meeting with the pharmacist and finds the woman dead, she meets handsome Detective Jonathan Zalinski, and finds him unexpectedly attractive. Jonathan ’s job is to expose criminals and protect citizens. Focused on tracking down the pharmacist’s killer, he can’t afford to be distracted by the attractive woman who found the victim. Can the killer be caught and the criminal activity behind the killing shut down without losing their lives?

Kelsey Monroe has avoided the mistake of marriage once, and that’s enough. She has her friends and beauty salon in her small home town of Skyview, Missouri, and involvement with the nearby Lake Ozark ministry teams. She’s content. When an attractive man who introduces himself only as Nick comes to her aid after she locks her keys in her van, she is attracted, but never expects to see him again. Then an unexpected windfall sends her on a search for her biological brother. Wealthy businessman Nick Lafferty has never found a woman who holds his interest beyond a date or two, but he is ...

Jenna Michaels can’t risk falling in love. She has already lost too much. When she meets Evan Bryant, their mutual attraction sends her running from the possibility of another loss. Principal of Hawthorn Christian Academy Evan Bryant never thought he would be attracted to another woman after the death of his beloved wife. Meeting Jenna convinces him that he can love again, but is there hope that they can move beyond their pasts and find happiness together?

RETURNING TO THE BOOTHEEL IS BITTERSWEET FOR JESSIE STEVENS When she and her brother come back to the home they fled years earlier, they find Gabe Kirby, the neighbor who was kind to Jessie as a girl, guarding the farm. Successful cotton farmer, Gabe, remembers Jessie fondly from childhood, but the grown up Jessie takes his breath away. He thought his life would be devoted to helping others and would not include marriage, but now he questions that. Can he convince her--and himself--that they can find happiness together?

WAR VETERAN LEROY CLOVER CAN’T RISK ANOTHER BETRAYAL—OR ANOTHER GLORIA. Recently returned home from WWII, Leroy must start life anew. But dreams of the war and memories of Gloria’s betrayal don’t make that easy. When he meets another Gloria—and finds himself inexplicably drawn to her—those chaotic feelings only multiply. Gloria Jadwin has left her nursing job, and heartache, behind to play baseball with the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. While on leave with a knee injury, she accompanies her cousin’s wife to Texas and meets Ruby’s brother, Leroy, an ...