Fifteen years ago, Bonnie Murphy had a choice to make. She’d either have to end her relationship with her boyfriend of three years, or her mother would withhold her college tuition. Needing to get out from under her mother’s thumb, she broke things off with Hunter and went to college. However, the devastation of the loss caused her to fail out of college after a semester. Upon returning at winter break, she found that Hunter had moved on. With no more fight in her, she went along with her mother’s plan for her to marry a man ten years her senior. Ten years into that marriage, her husband passed away, leaving her alone for the last five.
Hunter Jennings has spent the last fifteen years longing for the woman who broke his heart just before high school graduation. No one he’s dated has ever been what she was to him. Five years ago, after her husband passed away, Bonnie started working as a waitress at the bar he and his friends frequent. The only words exchanged between them since that day that she walked away were when she’d take his order.
When a chance interaction leads to them rekindling their friendship, they’re both mindful of the hurt waged in the past. As that friendship turns physical, Bonnie must face her fears over being with the man she loved all that time ago before Hunter grows to feel used—in being able to be with her only in secret and not entirely.
Tropes: second chance romance, estranged high school sweethearts, secretly together, rediscovering each other, widow x the man she would have married, breeding kink, small town romance, healing long broken hearts, comfort in finding your person
Available: Kindle – Kindle Unlimited – Paperback
Content Warnings
Reference to Violence- one secondary character punches another, off-page, discussed
Sexual Coercion- discussion of an event where a friend of the group tried to force his way into another character’s bed, off-page
Parental/Spousal Death- (murder, brain aneurysm) off-page, historical. Several characters have parents or a spouse who have died. None of the deaths occur on page. They are referenced in passing. In this story, the loss of the FMC’s spouse is referenced heavily. The murder of the parent of a close friend at the hand of the other parent is referenced.
Strained Relationship with Parents- The FMC has a controlling and narcissistic mother who monitors her every movement. That mother is the one who delivered the ultimatum of the FMC ending the couple’s relationship or she’d withhold college tuition. The MMC’s father is an abusive alcoholic. They both have a parent who abandoned them with the abusive one. The MMC, in particular, makes reference to childhood abuse at the hands of his father, but it is off-page and historical. This results in a lot of unpacking of trauma throughout the book. At the end, the father burns down the MMC’s house for kicking him out from staying with him.
Divorce/Marriage Ending- discussion of friends’ marriage that ended in divorce, the possibility of separation and divorce of a friend couple
Anxious Character- The FMC is highly anxious and has been mostly isolated, outside of work, since her husband passed away five years ago. She’s also introverted and highly introspective.
Secret Relationship- The FMC and MMC engage in a friends-with-benefits type situation where they are not telling people they are even speaking, let alone hooking up for most of the book.
Explicit Sex
Shonna Preston 