It was supposed to be my getaway Christmas,Now, I’m stuck sharing with my brother’s best friend,This has just turned into the holiday from hell!For the first time in years, I was excited about the holidays,A week of sun, sea and luxury, curtesy of my newly loaded brother.I should have known there’d be a sting in the tail…The moment I arrive in Hawaii, I realize there’s an intruder in the house,And it’s no burglar—no, it’s far worse than that,Because Ryan Finch—my brother’s business partner, and the same man my mother’s been trying to hook me up with for years—is apparently here for the holidays as well.The longer we spend together, the harder it is to remember all the reasons why I told myself that going there would be a terrible idea,And my relaxing Christmas getaway has just turned into the ultimate exercise in restraint.Will I give in to temptation and find that he’s more than his reputation, or will the truth that I’m trying to ignore leave me crushed?

    A Marshal who is given the sudden responsibility of two children. A mail-order bride situation that has fallen to ruin. Can Lottie find a home and a family by Christmas? December 1880 When Lottie Reiner lost her father in the war, her mother fell to pieces. At the young age of eleven, Lottie began caring for her catatonic mother. But when both her mother and grandfather pass away months apart, Lottie becomes nothing but a burden to her family. Her grandmother pushes Lottie to get married before it’s too late. But Lottie is a twenty-seven-year-old spinster with no experience raising children. Isn’t it already too late?Deputy US Marshal Archer King comes from a family of law keepers. His father was a US Marshal, and his mother worked as a Pinkerton Agent with Kate Warne. When his only sister passed on in childbirth, his brother-in-law swore he could care for the children on his own. And Archer was to check in on them, but in almost two years, he’s neglected that duty to his sister. When the father, Sam Hodge, goes missing, he finds out exactly what kind of dire situation the children have been subject to.After being turned out of her home, Lottie heads to Durant, Oklahoma, where Sam Hodge and his two children live, in the hopes of becoming a new wife and mother. Only the mail-order situation does not turn out the way Lottie had hoped, and many of the things that Sam had told her in his letters turn out to be lies. The only thing true is the children, and Lottie is fast becoming attached to them. But what will happen when Sam is found? Will she have the opportunity to get a home and a family before Christmas?

    But her rescuer, the mysterious Anthony Sterling, immediately melts her heart and makes her dream of a life beyond her tiny, sheltered world. The more she gets to know him, the more she senses he is hiding something from her.When Captain Anthony Sterling was wounded in battle, he lost his leg, his fiancee, and any hope for happiness. Even the revelation that he is the heir to a fortune brought him nothing but bitterness. Then his chance encounter with the charming, innocent Phoebe makes him wonder if there may be a future for him after all. But first he must escape the shadows of his past.