He wants to punish me for daring to visit his town. I’m not the kind of girl to back down.

When I’m sent to a small mountain town for a job assignment, I slap a smile on my face and pray I can make it through the week. I’m a city girl born and bred, and the snowy mountains are the last place I’d choose to spend a vacation.

Luckily for me, the utterly hot mountain guide tasked with showing me around doesn’t want me in town either. Despite being friendly with the locals, he’s done nothing but try to ruin my life since I arrived.

Griff is grumpy, smug, and exhausting: 3 things I hate. Oh, he has some good qualities, too, like being hotter than sin and knowing more about the mountain than the bears that live there. But with me? Yeah, he hates me…

When Alaina finds herself pregnant and alone, she knows she’s in a tight spot. Small towns like hers tend to raise eyebrows at unwed mothers, and she knows the vicious gossip mill will soon be churning. Thankfully, her ruggedly stoic childhood protector, Gus McCloud, knows a thing or two about guarding secrets. Offering Alaina a marriage on paper is the least he can do.

As a hardworking rancher, Gus is well equipped to provide for Alaina and her baby. And despite plans for a solitary life, he wants to. He knows what it’s like to be an outsider, especially after a traumatic childhood left him with scars inside and out. Alaina has long dreamed of a fairy-tale romance, but as the growing fire between her and Gus starts feeling real enough to burn, she questions what that means. Maybe her fake marriage to Gus is the real love she’s been missing all along.

Rule number one for dating your best friend’s sister: Don’t.

Just don’t do it.

Especially when your best friend is dead and the last thing he made you promise him was that you’d keep an eye on his little sister, but not too good of an eye.

As a musician whose longest committed relationship was six weeks, I, Holden Catalano, was the last guy on Earth who should’ve been messing around with Laney Ellison.

The super smart girl whom I affectionately dubbed Lala since childhood was always off limits.

Though that didn’t stop me from thinking about her over the years, especially those times when the two of us would sneak out onto the roof and talk for hours after my buddy fell asleep. It was innocent, but I’d always held a torch for her.

After Ryan passed away, I vowed to always protect Lala. That included protecting her—from me.