When Win Kirkland left the Marine Corps Intelligence Agency after twenty-five years, she thought she’d left war behind. But a sniper’s shot through her front window soon ends the tranquility she’d been seeking. It also brings Sheriff Sarah Barrow Pitt—her one time best friend—back into her life. For her part, the Sheriff has fought crime her entire life. But her latest battle seems to be keeping her own job in a deeply conservative area. She and Win were once close, until an unguarded moment profoundly altered their friendship. Now Win is in trouble—and doesn’t want her help. As evils of the past and present threaten to engulf them both, admitting to their feelings might just pose the most dangerous risk of all.

Welcome to McCrumb County, Indiana, where retired Marine Corps Colonel Win Kirkland and Sheriff Sarah Pitt had hoped that their deepening relationship might bring some peace and order to their complicated lives. Freed from the closeted life after 25 years in the military, Win is fiercely out and proud—and ready for Sarah to move in. But the newly out Sarah has serious doubts about living as an open lesbian among her county’s conservative population. She longs to overcome her fear of exposure, especially since several gorgeous and exotic women seem intent on seducing Win—and she knows she could lose Win to them or to a bullet. Win and Sarah’s personal struggles are soon overshadowed by a series of local and international crimes that will blur the lines between hostility and horror, friend and foe, sacrifice and survival. A Woman of Strong Purpose is the heart-pounding follow-up to S. M. Harding’s popular romantic mystery I Will Meet You There.

With their first wedding anniversary just passed, retired Marine Corps Colonel Win Kirkland and Sheriff Sarah Pitt are more in love than ever and making plans to adopt two orphaned girls from Afghanistan. With their most challenging case behind them, the only threat on the horizon seems to be the approaching blizzard. But a much more dangerous storm is about to hit with a force that will exact a terrible toll on Win and Sarah’s loved ones, their love and their lives. A shadowy network has chosen McCrumb County, Indiana, as a testing ground for one of the deadliest threats facing the United States. Their ruthless psychological and physical attacks quickly escalate to murder, but who are these people? And what is their end game? Even Win’s former intelligence colleagues seem stumped. As Win and Sarah risk everything to identify and stop the perpetrators, they are quickly learning that what doesn't kill you…is waiting to try again. Speak in Winter Code is the eagerly awaited sequel to S. M. Harding’s best-selling Kirkland/Pitt romantic thrillers I Will Meet You There and A Woman of Strong Purpose.