Showing results by author "Marika Ray" in All Categories

I have my fresh start in a new town, this time a widow with a preteen daughter who rolls her eyes enough to make them stay that way. Too bad my past mistake is also here to greet me. Daxon Hellman. Town a-hole. Hot young contractor hired to build my house in the woods. It's only when I'm face-to-face with him for the first time that I realize he's the mystery man from two years ago. It's a long story of too many drinks, grief that made me resort to acting out, and an encounter in the dirty bathroom of a bar. Try as I might, I can't forget that night.

The first time I met her, she was running away from her own wedding. The second time I met her, she tried to get me fired from my job. The third time? I had to haul her drunk self off the bar before she completed her amateur—and hot as hell—striptease. She's messy, chaos in human form, and not at all who she claims to be. Everything I've worked so hard for depends on her not screwing things up for me. I should run, not walk, away from her, but all I want to do is strip her layers until I get to the . . . heart—yeah, that's what I was going to say—of who she really is.

Callan Hellman. Mr. Nice Guy paramedic. My best friend. He buys my friends flowers when he knows they've had a hard day. Who does that? Callan's the guy every girl wants to date and take home to mama. Not me though. We're just friends. Have been since elementary school. I was the weird girl who kept him laughing with my antics, even when his father abandoned his family and Callan hid those scars behind his smile. But due to my sudden medical diagnosis at twenty-four, Callan insists I move in with him.

You could say I was a successful twenty-four-year-old, if you looked at my house sitting on the edge of a cliff with killer views of the Pacific Ocean. Or my bank account with seven figures from my coaching business. But according to my frenemy, the girl who invited me to her bachelorette party at an exclusive resort in Lake Tahoe, I was just a sad, lonely girl without a man by my side. I'd show her who was living the dream by finding a tall, dark, and handsome man to rock my world for one night.

He's a giant of a man who grunts for words and barks out orders, yet circumstances require I be his fake girlfriend and spend the weekend with him in an isolated cabin. And of course there's only one bed. Just my luck . . .But I need this commission check that only Boston can guarantee me. So I hike up the mountain 'til I can't feel my legs, eat questionable canned beans for sustenance, and vow to simply ignore him for two days. What I didn't count on was a freak blizzard to lock us in the cabin for a bit longer.