I left him behind because I had no choice.... That's what I keep telling myself, but it doesn't make it any easier to sleep at night...or to drown out the words he kept repeating over and over the day we'd met: I just want to go home. That was eight long years ago and I'd only known him as Billy, a terrified 14-year-old I'd had to leave behind to save someone else. But his name wasn't Billy and he's no longer a frightened kid lost in a world where he was nothing more than a possession.

At the tender age of eight, Rafe Barretti lost everything. His parents, his childhood, his innocence. And the brothers who were supposed to protect him let him go instead. Twenty years later and he's finally ready to exact his revenge by taking away everything they hold dear - their company, their reputations, their futures. But even that isn't enough - their loved ones will have to pay, too, and all their precious secrets are fair game.

Vengeance. It's the one thing on ex-cop Rhys Tellar's mind and he's spent every day of his two-year prison sentence planning how he'll bring down the former lover and partner who sold him out and cost four people their lives. A six-month parole stint working at the CB Bar Ranch in southwestern Montana should be the easiest thing he's ever done. But the last thing he expects is to feel something for two men there. A future. That's what Finn Stewart wants, but to have it he must leave behind the man he wants above all others, his very straight boss and best friend, Callan Bale....

10 years after leaving his small Minnesota hometown in his rear view mirror for what Nolan Grainger was sure would be the last time, life has decided to throw the talented musician a curveball and send him back to the town he lived in but was never really home. When he’s forced to use the last of his own money to keep from losing the family home, desperation has him turning to the one man he’d hoped never to see again....

He promised to never leave me. But when I needed him the most, that was exactly what he did. Wilderness guide Xander Reed has spent fifteen years trying to forget the night he turned to his best friend in his darkest hour, only to find the young man who'd sworn to always have his back was turning his on Xander instead. Two thousand miles and fifteen years of building a new life in the quiet backcountry of the Rocky Mountains should have been enough to put the memory of Bennett Crawford out of his mind.

My rules when it comes to my job in personal protection are pretty simple: Protect the client’s life, not their feelings. Don’t put hands on a client unless you’re getting them out of harm’s way. For God’s sake, don’t do something stupid like fall in love. Twenty-four hours after meeting Jude Archer, rules one and two are already out the window.

When we were kids, Xavier Price understood horses, but somehow, he got me too. He'd made me feel like I wasn't just the overdressed, too sensitive 15-year-old geek who loved math and didn't always say the right thing. But all that changed the night he threw my trust back in my face and betrayed my family in the worst kind of way. And while I'm back in Eden to make sure my uncle's horse ranch is operating in the black, the one thing I know I won't have to deal with is the man who'd been on the verge of stealing my heart 10 years ago.

Conor: It starts with a drunken text pic. The kind I would normally never send. Only, instead of it going to the flirty hotel bartender, it goes to some random stranger who actually responds. Wells: The first thing I notice about Conor Newell when he sits down in my high-rise conference room is how delightfully nervous he is. Then I see his tie. The same geeky tie that’s held hostage on my phone. The one that belongs to my anonymous late-night texter. And it changes everything.

When Winter Waites knocks on the door to the snowy cabin where his next physical therapy patient awaits him, he has no idea his dream celebrity is on the other side. Gentry Kane is everything Winter has always fantasized about. But it was only a fantasy. What happens when Winter is faced with the flesh and blood man who wants more than physical therapy? Can one night in a cozy cabin lead to more? And how will that affect Winter's growing career in the tiny, charming town of Aster Valley?

I left my family and tiny Texas hometown 15 years ago to escape small-town gossips and to give my mom and sister the chance at a better life. But when a phone call from an attorney back home informs me that my sister passed away, leaving me custody of her newborn baby, I'm shocked out of the steady life I've built for myself running a tattoo shop in San Francisco. The thing is: I don't do babies. And I don't do small towns. Or commitment. And I especially don't do family.

There wasn’t a time when I didn't know Flynn “Firecracker” Honeycutt. He’s been my childhood friend. My high school rival. The guy I couldn’t stop dreaming about, long after I thought I’d left him and Honeybridge in my rear-view mirror.

The job at Sunday Orchard was supposed to be temporary. A chance to gain some work experience, to have some fun. I had not expected to be welcomed into a family of gorgeous and weirdly efficient lumberjack-types, or to find purpose in the tiny Vermont town whose claim to fame seemed to be apple-based products and copious amounts of charm. And I most definitely hadn’t expected to fall for Knox Sunday, my grumpy, burly, fifteen-years-older, reluctant roommate, with his infuriating lectures, his hot-as-fire body, his superior attitude - I’ve never been one to put down roots.

The Dean of Admissions at the girls’ dream school says only families with two parents need apply, and in desperation, Grant makes me a different offer: to be his on-paper husband. With things heating up between us and my heart hanging in the balance, how can I convince Grant to make me the proposal I really want: to turn this marriage of convenience into a real-life happily-ever-after?

My loser high school friend never deserved him anyway. If I’d had the chance, I would have locked Remy down years ago. Only, when the party leads to a drunken kiss, going on their honeymoon, and sharing their marital bed, I have to say, I’m not entirely sad that their wedding went up in flames.

As a founding member of The Vers, a queer podcast I host with my three best friends, I’m "The Loner"—quieter than the others, and except for them, I don’t let myself get too close to people. Most of them just let you down anyway, or maybe it’s just that something about me chases people away.