I've spent most of my life on the run from a dangerous man, who also happens to be my father. Jumping town to town and changing my name more times than I can even count. Friendships and relationships are alien to me... My closest companion being my mother, who has given up everything to keep us safe. A new town, per usual. New identities, also per usual. Only this time, my mother throws me a curveball. Apparently, she plans on staying here long enough for me to settle in and complete my Senior year of High School. She wants me to see what it's like being "normal." That’s how I meet Gray, and there is nothing expected about him at all. Even though the attraction is instant, we both try our best to ignore it. A high-school girl and an older man will cause a small-town scandal, which I need to avoid for my mother’s sake. The difference in our age isn't even the half of it. Not to mention my view on love and relationships: Purely chemical and ever-changing. But how do I fight this when he is everything I don’t believe in, and I’m exactly what he doesn’t need? \*NOTE: This is a sweet, yet steamy, New Adult Contemporary Romance. RECOMMENDED FOR MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY.\*

Gray Difficult circumstances have rooted me to our small southern town and held me here. I’ve been the glue in my family, the one holding us together. Loyalty to those I love is a given and some things are inescapable. Valley blew into my life like the most beautiful storm. She obliterated my defenses, seeping into my soul and changing me forever. Then, in the blink of an eye, she was gone. Sometimes we face a choice that will forever alter the course of our lives... And the choice I’ve made will not only have me rubbing elbows with the worst of the worst—I’ll need to become one of them. Valley Moving on is tough. Especially when the man you’re trying to forget shows up out of the blue dressed in a sharp suit instead of his signature blue jeans and work boots; driving a flashy new car instead of a raised-up Jeep... What happened to the simple southern man I left behind? This new Gray seems dangerously modified. Now I’m more confused than ever. My life has always been an intricate web of lies and unresolved questions. A life on the run makes relationships impossible, and I’ve been running from the monster lurking in the shadows for most of mine. And the thing about lies and monsters? They eventually catch up to you.

His name sounded like it belonged to a movie star... Nash Hudson—my childhood friend and constant crush. As kids, he helped me up when I fell down, brushing off my scraped-up knee and offering to “kiss my boo-boo better.” In high-school, he gave me hope that we could be more... Then, a tragic accident involving my father took the lives of his parents and older brother. Nash and I went from inseparable to strangers in the course of one ill-fated night, and my family became the town outcasts. It took five years of hardening my heart, of reinventing myself and rebuilding my confidence, but I’m no longer the same meek wallflower he left behind. I’ve moved on. Or have I? Nash is back. He’s standing in front of me right now, and shit, my heart is doing that same weird thing it always has. “See ya ‘round, Stars.” He drops the familiar childhood name into random adult conversation like it’s nothing, like our entire rocky past was just some horrible figment of my imagination. I stand gawking when he shoots me a wink then retreats down the sidewalk—newfound son on his shoulders, blonde trophy-wife-in-training at his side. I’m old enough to know better, yet here I am, still hopelessly longing for the one guy that’s expressly forbidden to me. Not only have I sworn him off, and not only is he juggling being a single dad who’s trying to integrate a four year-old into the not-so-cookie-cutter lifestyle his fiancée had all planned out... There’s something even bigger standing in the way... Bad blood doesn’t mix. Especially in small southern towns.