Five years after the death of his wife, Dr. Mitchem Taylor is ready to share his life with someone. Only one thing stands in the way of giving love a second chance—the strictly enforced "no dating" rule. A rule that pierces his heart every time he thinks about his university assistant, Cynthia. When a handsome man shows interest in her, Mitchem must choose between love for his career or love for his beautiful assistant. Since the day she saw her boss, Mitchem, care for his son’s knee at a little league game, Cynthia Gold has been in love with him. Pining away over a love she can never have forces her to make a drastic change—a new job thousands of miles away. But can she walk away from her life she enjoys and a boy who’s like a son, or keep her heart bound to a man who may never love her.

At the age of fifteen, Anna Baker was ripped from her childhood home, and her one true love, vowing to return the minute she graduated high school. Professor Liam Harrow once believed his childhood sweetheart would return home to him, but during college he faced reality and hardened his heart to love. When Historic Hall faces demolition, both Anna and Liam search for options to save their childhood memories, but when secrets unravel and the truth of Anna’s childhood departure is revealed, it could corrupt their memories, risk their present, and destroy their future.

D.C. Agent Brady Lasiter lives to take down the bad guys. Until journalist Charlotte Rutledge struts into his life with a story that can dismantle his entire Narcotics and Special Investigation Division. Charlotte Rutledge lives in small town America, but she hits hard at big town problems as the anonymous creator and editor of a true crime magazine. Fueled by the unsolved murder of her sister, she'll do anything to uncover the truth. Even if it means forcing Lasiter out of his carefully constructed shell. After Charlotte's true identity is revealed, she and Brady's lives collide in a battle to save her town from becoming collateral damage. But when Charlotte receives death threats, Brady must choose between his job, his men, or the dream woman who shattered the shield protecting his heart.

Shamed and dismissed from the Atlanta Sheriff's Department, Larson Rader abandons big city law enforcement for a small town campus police job. He only hopes it's far enough to escape the publicity of putting a man his own sister falsely accused in the hospital. Helen Simpson returns to Riverbend for a new start with her young daughter running a battered women's shelter. Small town life gives them a peace they never had, until a dangerous man from her past, untouchable by police, threatens to kidnap her daughter. A payment he feels is due to him for the humiliation she brought upon his family for fleeing the cartel and her husband. Helen must learn to lean on someone again or she'll lose her daughter. But will Larson be able to trust her, or will he abandon her to her fate?