Home is where the heartache is...
For Stormy Daigle, that's the way it's always been, and when she bolted from the Podunk town of Aubry, Maine ten years ago, she vowed to never come back. So when circumstances force her to return, she has only two goals in mind: (1) assist the ailing-yet-cantankerous old buzzard that is her father, and (2) get the hell out of dodge, ASAP! But an unlikely friendship with one man and the possibility of renewed love with another has Stormy seeing things in an entirely different light, and she begins to realize that the biggest problem of all may be her own small-mindedness! But just when she starts to believe in new dreams and second chances, a secret from her past emerges that threatens to destroy everything.
Brian Lozier never liked Stormy Daigle and her snooty, better-than-all-of-this attitude, so when it turns out to be her very fine ass that he rescues from a car wreck one summer night, he's less than thrilled with his fate. Still, her father is a friend, and Brian's mother raised him right, so he has no choice but to help her out. Besides, she's easily riled, and it's kind of fun watching her get all worked up and flustered, until she's got him feeling that way... about her! But a promise he made years ago has Brian torn between his heart and his integrity; and interference from Stormy's scheming ex-boyfriend once again pits Brian against his archrival over the affections of a woman. But this time, Brian is determined to come out on top.
*** Ansel Adams, or Ance as those he knows tend to call him, is a bad man though he didn't consider that to be his fault. His father had been a bad man, his grandfather had been a bad man--hell as far as Ance knew he came from a long line of men were just a bitten rotten down at their core. Everyone that knew Ance knew he was a man who would never change, never give up his lifestyle, never settle down....Until Penelope Reynolds came sobbing into his life.
Ance hadn't given much thought to offering this rich man protection as he took a load of stolen goods to market until he realized that the banging sound coming from the crate was a tiny little blond with pigtails, freckles and a bad leg.
Suddenly he's struck with a choice. Save the girl and return her to her family or simply let life do what life does and chalk it up to bad luck for little Penelope--in the past the latter choice would have been easy, but not now.
*** Audrey Reynolds had never been so afraid in her life. Her daughter has been stolen. Her daughter is all she has left in the world since the murder of her husband five years earlier. Desperate to find Penelope, Audrey enlists the help of U.S. Marshall Rodger York who also happens to be the man who's been trying to marry her since the day after her husband had been placed under the ground.
They embark on a journey to find Penelope and Rodger has vowed to kill whoever took the girl away. But things go wrong and Audrey learns that the very man she went to for help might be the man responsible for every bad thing that's happened in the last five years......
Will Audrey find a way to survive but more importantly will she ever see her daughter alive again?