The night of her twenty-fifth birthday forever altered the trajectory of her life.

"Malone... you really think you could love me for the rest of your life?" His mouth pulled into that slow smile she knew too well. "Baby, Ah'm more worried 'bout whether one lifetime gon' be enough." 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓆸 ♡ 𓆸 ˖ ࣪𓂃 A'neya Mercer knows cameras, Los Angeles, and the wealthy life she was raised in. What she doesn't know is Selah Cross, Louisiana, the small Black Southern town where she was born. When her work as a cinematographer sends her there for the summer to document its people and culture, she expects to capture their story. Not uncover pieces of her own. And she certainly doesn't expect Malone Selah. Tall, dark, handsome, loved, and Southern to his bones, Malone is an old soul cowboy with generations of Selah roots beneath his feet, a man devoted to his family, his land, his people, and the life he's built there. But as Selah Cross pulls A'neya deeper into its history, Malone becomes more than the handsome man who lives across the street from her. She's finding pieces of a life she never knew belonged to her while he faces losing pieces of the only one he's ever known. When the ground beneath both their lives begins to shift, will the love they've planted together in Selah Cross be strong enough to take root? or will they lose it before it ever gets the chance to grow? A Black Southern love story about what we inherit, what we fight to keep, and who we become when love finally gives us somewhere to belong. 𓂃 ࣪˖ ˖ ࣪𓂃 ʙʟᴀᴄᴋ ꜱᴏᴜᴛʜᴇʀɴ. ʙʟᴀᴄᴋ ʀᴏᴏᴛᴇᴅ. ʙʟᴀᴄᴋ ʟᴏᴠᴇᴅ. ʙʟᴀᴄᴋ ʀᴇᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀᴇᴅ. ꜱᴏᴜʟᴀᴀɴ.

Asha Camari Hill has already lost enough to drugs-her past, her sense of self, nearly her life. Now sober and fighting for stability, she keeps her world small and controlled. Recovery is fragile, and she knows better than to tempt the darkness she barely escaped. She keeps her head down, clinging to routine, convincing herself the past can't find her if she doesn't look back. But the past never forgets. Before rehab, Asha made a mistake that left her in debt to a man who doesn't believe in mercy or clean slates. He remembers everything-especially what's owed. When he learns she's resurfaced, he doesn't collect right away. He watches from the edges of her new life, drawn to the woman she's becoming and the one she used to be. He is danger wrapped in control. She is healing held together by sheer will. What grows between them is unwanted and unspoken, a slow-burning tension neither of them is willing to name. He is the kind of man she should run from. She is the kind of woman he never meant to care about. And the closer the past presses in, the harder it becomes to tell whether walking away will save her-or cost her everything she's fought to rebuild.