Showing results by author "Jessie Gussman" in All Categories

Once the vows were said, she had to keep them. After all, they were said to God just as much as to her loser, neglectful husband. And so for 15 years and four children, Carmen Davis stayed true, kept her word, and did her level best to love the man she married. But she never forgot the man who could make her heart race and whose life was as straight and true as it had promised to be in high school.

Two days before Christmas, single mom Blythe Mason is stunned when her car is not at the mechanic’s shop where she dropped it off. Her surprise soon gives way to panic when they figure out that an employee gave her car to the wrong person, and it is now 500 miles away. All the Christmas gifts that she’d carefully budgeted out for her children since July were in the trunk.

People are so serious about life. I feel it was made to be enjoyed. I’m not interested in having a great career or climbing a corporate ladder or being inside much at all, actually. I don’t like to stay with things too long, either. I’ve worked as a short line cook, a firefighter, and a dolphin trainer among other things. So, when the ladies at the Good Grief senior living center offer me a short term job as the photographer for the risqué nature calendar they want to pose for—to cross it off of Miss Agnes’s bucket list—I am all in.

Sadie Powers has crushed on her brother’s best friend for years, but when the Piece Makers, Sweet Water’s own quilting and matchmaking group, ask her to help them match him up with the new single mom in town, she just wants the man she’s loved for years to be happy, even if that’s with someone else. When rancher and livestock auction owner Colman Baldwin is asked to give riding lessons to the son of the new single mom in town, he doesn’t hesitate to make time in his schedule to help out. That’s what small towns are for. He doesn’t realize he’s being set up.

Jonah Mills is content keeping a low profile on the Sweet Briar Ranch, drumming up business for their crop-dusting service and learning how to be a rancher after years in the Air Force. His marriage was a mistake he doesn't intend to repeat.

Luke Landry will avoid the matchmaking Miss Heather at all costs. Miss Heather will do anything to get her granddaughter hitched, and Luke seems to be her favorite target. If Kristen were such a catch, she wouldn't need her gram to find a husband for her. Every time Luke runs into her, sparks fly, and one or both of them leave angry. Why can't Miss Heather see Kristen and he would never be any good together?

Willen Hawkins knew exactly what she wanted to do with her unexpected inheritance: use it to fix up the Indigo Inn at Blueberry Beach. After all, it’s been more than 18 years since she graduated from Blueberry Beach High and left town. The life she’s created for herself is far more lonely than the life she’d envisioned for herself as a teen. But if she wants to reinvent herself and start building the life she wants, she has to stop waiting for everything to be perfect and start now.

Everyone thinks Poppy Kyle is naturally happy and positive. But it took a major tragedy in her life for her to overcome her natural negative tendencies and develop a brighter attitude. She will not allow the surly West Barclay to steal her joy.

What else is a man supposed to do when God clearly shows him his life's calling is no longer healing physical hearts, but spiritual? It would have been easy to tell God no, and to ignore the call back to a tiny town in the Ozarks to begin a ministry in a small church that was about to close its doors. But at 53, Race walked away from his prestigious and successful career and agreed to follow the Lord–under one condition. He told God he wanted a wife to labor alongside of him.

Since her husband's infidelity and their subsequent divorce, Kennedy just wants to be left alone to figure things out. North Dakota seems like the perfect place. Only, because of one little kidnapping and ransom incident, her older brother thinks she needs a bodyguard. She supposes he's probably right, but she'd really like it to be anyone other than Baker Lawrence. He's been her brother's best friend forever and her very first crush. There is no man more solid and dependable than Baker.

Journee Barclay isn't interested in the big, hulky football player the town of Mistletoe wants her to date. She's been writing to a sweet but shy computer geek, and she's hoping he'll eventually ask to meet her. But putting the town off is getting to be more difficult every day.

It was supposed to be simple. Marry the tall Texan. Her children get a father. They save the ranch. A business transaction, nothing more. She definitely wasn’t going to fall in love. After her husband ran off with her little sister, she was no longer susceptible to cowboy charm. But the North Dakota girl had never met a Texas cowboy.

Blakley Barclay knows her parents are up to something. They’ve been matching all her siblings and even some other people in her hometown of Mistletoe. But the man they want to pair her up with? A huge pro ball player with more muscles than brains, and she is not interested. So she turns to her best friend for help.

Crew Pittman was one of the world’s top underwater welders. Until a freak accident left him permanently unable to work. When Burgundy shows up at Crew’s new home to be a caretaker to the elderly woman who won’t leave, it seems like three unlikely people are trapped unwillingly together.

With her family and life spiraling out of control, Pam Corrigan needs an escape from the stress of her day job and decides to purchase the old inn just south of Strawberry Sands. Her mother will give her half of her inheritance when she remarries, but Pam isn’t the slightest bit interested in another failed relationship. So, she asks her best friend and neighbor, Mark Shields, to fake a relationship with her in the hopes that she can convince her mother to help fund the repairs of the inn she just purchased.

Merrit and Sorrel Hines have been trying to find a husband for their mom because they want a dad. Their mom says to be patient, but at the rate she's going–always more concerned with what is happening at her diner than in looking for a husband–they'll be grown and out of the house until she gets around to finding someone.

Chi came to Strawberry Sands to escape her past. There were a lot of things to be ashamed of there. Maybe that's why she's so eager to catch the eye of the big-name lawyer who hangs out at her diner. It will prove she's not as worthless as she feels. At a big gala she wasn't supposed to attend, she discovers the lawyer is not only cheating on her but married as well. She might have done more to embarrass herself, but Griff, her coworker, showed up on his bike and whisked her away. She is almost like a heroine in a fairy tale.

After her husband died, leaving her with six kids to raise on her own, Piper Hughes struggles to hold everything together on a hairdresser's small wage. She has no hope of expanding her two bedroom ranch house, and doesn't want to rely on the charity of the town either. She definitely doesn't want some strange man coming in, being too kind, stealing her kids' hearts, and turning her world upside down. He'll be leaving when he's done. After all, what man would want a woman with six kids?

Sunday Landry suffers the most painful loss possible - the loss of her son. She closes her candy shop and moves back in with her mother, barely able to get out of bed. What's the point in living? Noah Emery had a crush on Sunday in high school, but she didn't notice him, choosing someone else and eventually having his baby. Now that Noah is back in Strawberry Sands, Sunday again has too much on her mind to notice him, and he can't blame her. He can't imagine losing a child. He wants to help her overcome her grief, so he starts to write to her.

At the annual Christmas barn dance, Eleanor and her best friend Sally devise a mischievous plan to steal Sally's longtime cowboy crush, Peter. They enlist the help of their cousin, who mistakenly kidnaps Peter's brother, Franklin, instead. Determined to keep her intentions secret, Norma Jean convinces Eleanor to embark on a rescue mission. Little does she know that a fierce snowstorm is on its way, trapping her with Peter, a quirky cat, and her adorable litter of four kittens.