The Corner of Heartbreak and Forever

Having shaken her small-town image, Grace Montgomery is back home to teach a screenwriting class and spends her time poring over scripts. Preservation expert Reed Cross is back, too, working construction projects and trying to forget some fresh betrayals. As soon as this ideal hero is reintroduced (at night, shirtless, and on horseback), Grace's Southern feistiness returns. Grace and Reed spend some time denying the chemistry they have felt since they were teens and secretly mutually lost their virginity. They were unable to move on, and it's clear they were made for no one else. The banter among the Montgomery sisters gives this story a deep sense of place. Readers know the icy New York transplant veneer Grace adopted will melt away as fast as the eye-rolling at her sisters' country sensibilities. And when the instantly resmitten Reed faces a family crisis, Grace becomes the shoulder on which he can lean. If this story sounds familiar, it's Cole's "Sweet with Heat" version of her steamier Embracing Her Heart, written by alter ego Melissa Foster.