Rust And Roses

Ten years ago, Gwendolyn Pierce fled the crumbling coastal town of Ravenshore, Maine, and the man who once made her feel invincible. Duncan Blackwell was all ink, danger and devotion - the kind of love that left bruises on the soul. When he went to prison for a crime that shattered them both, Gwen ran and never looked back.

Now she's back - not by choice, but necessity. Her art career is faltering, her mother's estate needs to be settled, and her eight-year-old son, Rhys, deserves roots, even if they're in broken soil.

She tells herself it's temporary.
Just a few weeks.
Just long enough to clean out the old studio and leave ghosts behind.

But Ravenshore is small, and ghosts have a way of finding you.

When Gwen takes her car for repairs, she doesn't realize whose shop she's walked into - until she hears that low, rough voice that once made her legs weak. Duncan Blackwell, standing behind the counter at Blackwell's Garage and Ink, older, harder, every inch marked by the years she stole.

He doesn't recognize her at first - not until she turns, and the air between them tightens like wire. And then his eyes catch Rhys. On the boy's messy dark hair. On the familiar blue eyes staring right back at him.

The truth hits like a wreck.

Now Gwen's secret - the one she's guarded for nearly a decade - is unraveling under Duncan's gaze. And the man she left behind is no longer the reckless boy who worshipped her. He's colder, sharper, and he wants answers.

But Ravenshore remembers what they were - and what they destroyed. And as old love bleeds into new pain. Gwen and Duncan will have to decide whether forgiveness is worth the fire it takes to reach it.

Because some things, no matter how long they're buried, never stay dead.