Cross Springs Series

Linda Dowling's husband traded her in for a younger model, and she clung to the only life and home her kids knew. Easiest thing by far when her heart was broken and her small town was filled with folks who commonly mistook their neighbor's concerns for their own. But even in Cross Springs, NC, time moves on and starts to heal the most grievous of wounds. Linda shakes things up, goes back to college and—gasp!—starts dating a younger man. Suddenly everyone in Cross Springs has something to say about her life—and Linda is faced with hard choices. Does she bow to comfortable roles and old expectations? Or does she give herself a Kick Start and pursue the kind of love she never thought she would find?

Connie Burns knew one thing for sure: she never wanted kids. After 15 years of marriage, though, lots of things have changed. Her best friend moved out of state, remarried and is having a new baby. Connie is also dealing with the realities of life with lupus. All the changes make her rethink having a baby, but her husband and her doctor are against it. Both encourage her to test the waters by being a foster parent first to see how it goes, since stress is the worst thing for her lupus. Not only is Connie a typical "type A" personality, but she has a high-powered career, a bedroom-sized closet full of shoes, a penchant for perfection and a compact sports car. Though she's not exactly primed for motherhood, she agrees they should foster to up her chances at becoming a mom. When four-year-old Desi is placed with them, Connie's life turns upside down and her heart is quickly lost. But parenting isn't for sissies and this little girl comes with more baggage than most. Desi's mother is in hospice dying of cancer. Not only does Connie face traumas like hosting a birthday party for a 5-year-old, she also has to learn on the fly how to help Desi deal with a new school, a new family and the devastating death of her mother. As they take Baby Steps toward building a life together, Connie has to learn that life is messy, shoes aren't mission critical, and an imperfect life can be full of perfectly wonderful surprises.

Katie Warren didn't want her husband to die—not really—but he did. A year later, Katie is plagued by guilt for wishing him dead and by the anger she still harbors toward him for betraying her. She has given up her volunteers gigs, called a cease-fire in the pageant war between her daughter and mother and has begun, sadly, to neglect even her most prized possession: her looks. Cross Springs has given Katie all the grieving time it can spare. She is pressured to run a new church program and save the Women's League’s annual fundraiser—punishment for leading every group she ever joined and doing a great job. Her best friend is throwing single men at her—punishment for being forty-five and still having a tiara-worthy face. Worst of all, her every move is once again headline news on the local gossip blog. She has no idea what that is punishment for. Knowing she can't move on with her new life until she gets closure on her defunct one, Katie pokes into her husband's mysterious affair. Her sleuthing is hampered by her meddling mother, her rebellious daughter, Cross Springs (where nothing is as it seems) and the anonymous blogger. What her probing turns up about her husband makes her realize she has lived life according to what others expected of her sash-and-scepter self and only expected what they were willing to give her in return. But life has changed and Katie finds out she has, too. She decides to take some chances, claim happiness for herself and put a stop to the Tiara Wars once and for all—on her terms.

When Cross Springs' biggest gossip, Mindy MacPherson, goes after a mysterious rose grower's secrets, the last person she expects to encounter is her lone one-night stand, Javier Morales Nieto. Mindy had only one regret from her night with Javier: that she didn't have the courage to face him the morning after and see if what they felt for each other was real. Now that she's forced to work with him, all her fears and doubts are back in full force. Except, she's pretty sure Javier doesn't realize who she is. She certainly didn't realize he was her best friend's cousin! A little criminal trespass, a massive private greenhouse, a dubious rose supplier, a cache of hidden notebooks and a shocking encounter at a quinceañera add to the drama. But will Mindy and Javier solve the mystery of the prize-winning roses and find their way back into each other's arms? Only if Mindy faces her fears and admits to him that their close encounter was of the very best kind. The kind that lasts forever. When the emotional stakes are this high, even cut-throat the Cross Springs In Bloom competition looks like a walk in a springtime garden.

A married man. A forbidden romance. A scandal in the making. Suzanne Waters never intended to fall in love with a married man, much less bear his child. Though she broke things off with Larry Warren long before their son was born, her evil cousin Angela possesses evidence of the one-time affair. Suzanne works to keep her life and her son's existence off everyone's radar to protect Larry, but the pictures her cousin holds are an inescapable threat. When Angela finally makes a move and threatens to expose their affair to Larry's wife, Suzanne works to ensure Larry's life won't be destroyed. But Larry dies suddenly, leaving everything in limbo. When Katie Warren shows up on her doorstep at long last, Suzanne knows it's time to face the scandal she created. But Katie Warren is nothing like she expected and their lives take a turn neither sees coming. This novella was originally published as part of the Red Door Reads "Fifty Ways to Kill Your Larry" anthology.

A desperate artist. A reclusive legend. A story no one knows. Tondra only has a few months to prove to her parents she can support herself as an artist in New York City or they will force her to return to her native Atlanta. She left her parents and boyfriend behind to pursue her dream career and desperately needs an entrée into the art world. She trained as a tattoo artist as a financial back-up plan, which comes in handy when her new friend Friday Reed asks her to do a guest spot on the Reed brothers' tattoo shop reality show. Tondra knows this exposure on national television is the break she's been waiting for. When she shows up for her guest gig, she is astonished to learn her skin of the day is none other than legendary hip-hop artist Lakewood, another Atlanta native. Tondra realizes that working with him on the TV show is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to showcase her talent. However, when she asks what sort of artwork he wants for his tattoo, Lakewood proceeds to tell her the story of his life. Not the story the world thinks it knows, but the one he has never shared publicly. He doesn't allow the story to be taped, but all the details are trapped in her mind and sketchbook. Tondra knows his story is worth a mint to the insatiable celebrity gossip machine. It would also get her even more media attention than the reality show spot ever could. She faces a serious choice that will affect the course of her career and the rest of her life. This novella was originally published as part of the "Forget Me Not: Remembering Things We Have Lost" anthology to benefit Alzheimer's and dementia research.