All Hallows Heat

Claire Donovan has spent three years rebuilding her life after a divorce that taught her exactly what she never wants again: to be made smaller for someone else's comfort.

At forty-two, she's built her event-planning business from the ground up. It's not quite thriving, but it's hers—and with only six weeks of cash left, she can't afford another setback.

Then Blackwood Farm calls.

A last-minute Halloween festival. A failing timber-frame barn. A mountain of permits, repairs, vendors, and deadlines. Fifteen thousand dollars if she can pull it off.

What Claire doesn't expect is Jake Brennan.

Thirty, talented, stubborn, and determined to leave Blackwood behind for a new life in Portland, Jake is the contractor responsible for making the dangerous old barn safe. Claire is responsible for turning it into a working festival venue.

They clash immediately.

Then they start working together.

Late nights in the barn become conversations by the fire. Arguments turn into laughter. And somewhere between timber beams, autumn rain, and a Halloween festival that could save the farm, Claire discovers something she thought she'd lost forever:

desire without apology.

But Jake has a decision to make. Portland could give him the career he's always wanted. Staying could save the family farm—and change everything between them.

Claire knows what happens when you sacrifice yourself for someone else.

Jake knows what happens when you stay somewhere because you think leaving makes you selfish.

Neither expected to fall in love.

And neither can have the future they want without deciding what they're willing to risk for it.

A steamy small-town romance about second chances, unexpected attraction, an older woman and a younger man, and finding the courage to choose a life that finally fits.