Love wasn’t the daily special when a grumpy small-town baker delivers a baby in his bakery. Now, all he can think about is that sweet bundle and her tempting single mother. Having a baby in a bakery gives new meaning to taking the bun out of the oven. I’d been in Curmudgeon Bakery for one of those lemon baby-Bundt cakes I’d been craving since I found out I was pregnant. The draw had nothing to do with the baker himself. Tall, tatted, and edgy, looking more like a biker than a man who makes baked goods. I hardly knew him other than taking a tumble in a rainstorm in front of his shop . . . and then tossing myself at him after he rescued me. We shared a moment but it’s not what you’d think. Months later, he delivered my baby among his cookies and cakes. Talk about a second chance encounter. Then he whips up a plan to pretend to be my baby’s father, and everything heats up from there. My body. My heart. My willingness to accept a perfect stranger’s kindness despite him telling me over and over he isn’t who I think he is. I beg to differ. He’s that sugary drizzle on a citrus-flavored, guilty pleasure that’s bad for the hips, but together—him, and me, and baby—we’re the perfect blend of ingredients that might do all our hearts some good.

Love wasn’t part of the blueprint when high school sweethearts reunite in their small town. But this former military man never forgot the girl he left behind and he’s more determined than ever to rebuild their relationship brick by brick and heart by heart. Getting locked in the men’s restroom during my mother’s funeral wasn’t exactly how I expected to run into my high school sweetheart. The one who got away. The one who broke my heart. I could toss the busted doorknob in my hand at him, but I’d prefer to get the heck away. Because twenty years later, Knox Sylver isn’t a teenage boy anymore but a broad-shouldered, thick scruff man with eyes that still look at me like I’m the only person in the room. As a newly divorced mother of two teenagers, it’s been a long time since anyone sees me. And Knox is definitely watching. Unfortunately, he made choices in the past and I wasn’t one of them. According to him, that is ancient history. Also, according to him, it’s never too late for a second chance. He’s out to prove he’s solid and stable, having returned to our small hometown, in a better place after a career in the military. He’s a local hero as a fireman and he wants to rekindle the flame between us. I’m the one with decisions this round. Do I stay where memories hurt? Or do I leave my past, and Knox, behind me again? \+ + + From L.B. Dunbar comes an all-new small-town romance with a big family and the silver fox swoon one expects from her love over-40 romances.

Love was a losing battle for this country music darling and a single dad, baseball star until one night brings them together and one small town sets the playing field for a possible winning streak. They call me Lady Boss. Maneater. Queen. But beneath the makeup, blond wig, and glitzy costumes, I’m just a country girl who likes to sing. I don’t hate men, I’m just struggling to find a good one. I’ve learned my lesson. Fool me once, and it will never, ever happen again. So I’m baffled when I meet Ford Sylver. A superstar in his own right as the centerfielder for the Chicago Anchors baseball team, plus a single dad to three adorable little girls, we share a moment when I save his firm backside and pretend he’s mine. Something that he can never be. Only, when he suffers a season-changing injury and I need a place to disappear, we both end up back in Sterling Falls, where I’m suddenly and unwittingly his nanny. There’s danger in having a wild side. I’ll try anything once. However, forced into close quarters with Ford, acting as his personal nurse, and caring for his three little ones might backfire. Because I’m staring at all I ever wanted and never thought would happen for me. After losing at love in the past, could I finally be on a winning streak?

Love doesn’t break us; it makes us whole, my nana used to say. However, one minute, my world is set on fire, literally. The next, I am raising a six-year-old as a single mom without a clear path ahead of us. No place to live. No job. No money. I’m returning to Sterling Falls to claim what’s mine, then there will be no looking back on this beloved small town, a place I consider a handful of sand in the hourglass of my life. Then again, Clay Sylver has shaken up that ancient time clock. The silver fox in his forties is a bit cocky, but solid in every way that matters. He loves his siblings. He works hard. He owns an honest business. Honest, the emphasis here. He also suffers from damsel-in-distress syndrome with a savior complex for lost causes, like stray animals and down-and-out women. And I have a secret crush on him. When I see Clay stranded on the side of the road one dark, stormy night, I stop to offer assistance. Burning with fever, Clay is sick, and my mom-instincts kick in to give him comfort. That decision throws me off course again. While my past lurks everywhere, I find myself falling in love with Sterling Falls once more and falling harder for the man giving my son and me a safe haven. Love is a risk, according to Clay, but he’s slowly rescuing my heart while I’m saving his.

These former friends might be faking their engagement, but revealed crushes prove there might not be anything fictional about their arrangement. In college, I often saw Judd Sylver in the library. He was a cool, broody type of guy who reminded me of a deeply tortured soul who might write poetry. He was very different from the boy I met in third grade on National Make a New Friend Day when I passed him a note, asking if he wanted to be my new friend: Check yes or no. (I’m a bit obsessed with calendar days.) He was also vastly different from the young man who stood me up after I asked him to his prom. Twenty years later, I can let bygones be bygones, especially when he rescues me from a bad date. Then I witness him breaking up with his girlfriend which resulted in a sticky coffee drink on his chiseled cheeks and ice cubes on his fine-fitting jeans. I offered him a napkin. Hey, once a friend, always a friend, right? \insert sarcasm\ However, Judd takes us to the next level at my mother’s garden party, where a misunderstanding occurs with a teeny tiny slip of the tongue and a precious ring on my finger. And suddenly, I’m Judd’s fiancée. Fake or not, things are about to get a little too real with my old friend.

I wasn’t supposed to love him. I wasn’t supposed to even acknowledge him. But my entire life, I’ve had heart-eyes for my oldest brother’s former best friend, Cortland Haven. I can’t help it that boys are stupid, and a feud broke apart a long-time friendship and divided once-close families. Twelve years ago, try as I might to ignore Cort, I didn’t miss his gaze on me from across a crowded bar one night. Oh, the way my skin tingled under his appraisal. The way my heart pattered knowing he was looking at me. We shared more than a moment together. Now, we’re older and wiser, with a twelve-year age gap between us, and a divide greater than that between our families, but my heart hasn’t gotten the memo. No, that fickle organ as other plans for Cortland and me. Because I don’t just tumble for the man adverse to touch, I fall hard for him, when he can never be mine.

This small town \could\ be big enough for both of them . . . Quiet. Serious. Protective. Words Stone Sylver would use to describe himself. And yet, something in his classic blue eyes said he was so much more. Buried beneath the years of raising his younger siblings and working as a small-town sheriff was a man looking for love. Of course, I didn’t get all that the first night we met. The night we did a one-two step in a hotel hallway and knocked heads. The same night we shared a sweet potato cupcake and a single kiss. Why didn’t we share more? The answer became a great mystery and because I thought he was only a brief interlude in my wanderlust life, I wasn’t prepared to see him again in Sterling Falls. Visiting the small town where I once lived, I learn the man I witnessed act like a superhero was more entwined in my past than I’d remembered. And for a woman often afraid of a future, I suddenly craved one…with him. Which made no sense because I’ve never stuck in one place before. No one had ever asked me to stay. Then again, from our first encounter, I knew Stone Sylver was different.