Showing results by author "Jessie Gussman" in All Categories

Cormac Henderson is shocked when he discovered his friend from college has willed him half-interest in a high-dollar roping horse...and his daughter. But then he finds out that the woman who has hated him since high school is the person he's supposed to be sharing custody of both with.

Preston Harding witnessed his best friend’s death in the prime of his life. Alcohol has numbed the pain. Until his son’s mother drops the boy off on his doorstep and tells him she is dying. Suddenly he’s responsible for a young life and is facing another death. Thankfully, hospice is taking care of everything except the child.

Bev became a successful business woman, designing her own line of spandex undergarments for plus sized women and amassing a fortune as the company grew to a multibillion dollar international conglomerate. If she hadn’t lost her baby and broken up with her boyfriend when she was 15, none of her financial success would have ever happened.

Once the vows were said, she had to keep them. After all, they were said to God just as much as to her loser, neglectful husband. And so for 15 years and four children, Carmen Davis stayed true, kept her word, and did her level best to love the man she married. But she never forgot the man who could make her heart race and whose life was as straight and true as it had promised to be in high school.

Late one night Lincoln was delivering a yard decoration when he came upon a wild, unruly teenager throwing stones at the window of his neighbor’s house. He tackled the belligerent child and was about to call the cops when she informed him she was his neighbor’s sister who had been locked out of the house. Oops. Not the best beginning, but it gets worse when he accidentally walks into her house and accuses her of squatting in it.

Madeline Reese has a successful cooking show, a best-selling line of cookbooks and is considered one of the top celebrity chefs in Hollywood. One small problem – she can’t cook. Loyal Hudson doesn’t want to open his world-class kitchen to the cameras Madeline will bring with her, but the celebrity chef could be the bridge between him and a future with his little girl.

Waverley Madris is two months behind on her rent and about to lose her house and her children. Getting stuck with handsome Zane Hudson and his four kids in the Diner bathroom seems like just the type of thing that was just her luck. Except she emerges from that bathroom an engaged woman.

Ivory Haines is the daughter of the town’s resident retired prostitute and possibly the town drunk, although her mother wasn’t entirely certain. She resents her position in the town – and especially resents the teasing she’d been subjected to – and has vowed to show everyone that she is just as good as they are. She can hardly believe her luck when Chandler Hudson donates a month of his time to the highest bidder at the charity auction to benefit local victims of the recent tornado damage.

Braxton Emmerson was born and bred in the heartland. He loves his farm and his family, but he was willing to give it all up for the woman who stole his heart. But she didn’t want to give up her career and insisted on keeping their romance a secret. But then her business partner doubled crossed her, and she ended up with a prison sentence for tax evasion. Now she’s out and she’s much wiser.

After her husband walks out, leaving her with three small children, Shelby isn't interested in romance. She just wants her roof to not leak and the furnace to work. Keene Emmerson is ready to settle down, but he's not expecting to find love in a single wide trailer amidst the chaos of kids and construction and a pair of September sky blue eyes.

Originally diagnosed with Lyme disease, Esther MacCartney is frustrated because she’s been bedridden for months and doctors can’t tell her if she’ll ever be well again. The only person who’s visited her regularly is her sister’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, Monroe. He makes her laugh and treats her like he enjoys her company. But her sister has a job offer off the farm, and Esther is afraid Monroe will propose to get her to stay.

I thought it would be a good idea to buy a dog…. I ended up with an ATV I have no idea how to drive. I’m not sure how this happened, especially since the man I purchased it from, Justin Gabriel, introduced himself by running his remote-controlled monster pickup into my high heeled shoe. I’m serious, studious, and a high school English teacher at Good Grief High. Needless to say, Justin Gabriel is not my type.

People are so serious about life. I feel it was made to be enjoyed. I’m not interested in having a great career or climbing a corporate ladder or being inside much at all, actually. I don’t like to stay with things too long, either. I’ve worked as a short line cook, a firefighter, and a dolphin trainer among other things. So, when the ladies at the Good Grief senior living center offer me a short term job as the photographer for the risqué nature calendar they want to pose for—to cross it off of Miss Agnes’s bucket list—I am all in.

I live in Idaho. (Yes, potatoes. *eye roll* Can we talk about something else?) And I love it here. Small town values galore and it’s right where I want to raise my girls after my jerk ex traded me in for a “younger, newer model” (his words, not mine).

Crew Pittman was one of the world’s top underwater welders. Until a freak accident left him permanently unable to work. When Burgundy shows up at Crew’s new home to be a caretaker to the elderly woman who won’t leave, it seems like three unlikely people are trapped unwillingly together.

It took me a while—most of my life, in fact—to decide that my hometown of Good Grief, Idaho, is the best place in the world to live. But I have and I love it...except for one thing. My boss. Okay, so the man is good at his job. We just have a tendency to disagree on how much activity the seniors at our assisted-living center want to have.

Willen Hawkins knew exactly what she wanted to do with her unexpected inheritance: use it to fix up the Indigo Inn at Blueberry Beach. After all, it’s been more than 18 years since she graduated from Blueberry Beach High and left town. The life she’s created for herself is far more lonely than the life she’d envisioned for herself as a teen. But if she wants to reinvent herself and start building the life she wants, she has to stop waiting for everything to be perfect and start now.

Tiffany Grant wanted to return to her hometown of Blueberry Beach in style—but a bunch of bad choices mean that she’s crawling back with barely a penny to her name. At least her debts are paid off, even if she had to sell everything she owned to make that happen. She has a lot of regrets and a lot of sins and secrets to make up for. So the first thing she does when she arrives at Blueberry Beach is to stop at the church and volunteer for every program they have. Kane Burton has a secret past of his own. No one expects their pastor to have been a male stripper.

As they agreed on the night of their high school graduation, Leiklyn and her two friends, Tiffany and Willen, meet on the porch of the Manor at Blueberry Beach on April Fool’s day, 18 years after being given their diplomas. Life hadn’t turned out as expected for any of them. A single mother for 15 years, Leiklyn recently lost her job and her unemployment is running out. Could the manor she and her friends bought for one dollar be the change she needs to move forward in her life? Or will it just complicate things when she finds out the explosive secret her daughter is hiding?

Laura Wilson is back in Blueberry Beach, dealing with a mysterious illness that has depleted her energy and left her listless and unable to enjoy life. She's working part time in her grandfather's shop when a mysterious stranger rents the small apartment above theirs. He's strong, athletic, handsome, and full of life and energy. They couldn't be farther apart physically, but they bond as they each take on more responsibility as her grandfather's health declines. Will they decide providing precious memories to the hundreds of customers in the old shop is enough to build a future on?