Hurt people know hurt people.

Years ago, Sage McKinley thought settling down in small town Bell Buckle was the only way to protect her daughter. It didnt hurt that she managed to get a job at the local cafe, doing what she loved most: baking. The perfect life shed built for them was all that mattered—until everything was turned upside down.

All his life, Callan Bronson has upheld the expectation of being the caring brother in his large family of seven. If anyone needed a shoulder, he'd lend it. If they needed an ear, he'd listen. When a past ultimatum wrecked his confidence, he accepted that was all he'd ever be—the caretaker. But after his first, and hopefully last, visit to the local coffee shop ends with spilled coffee and broken glass, life proves to him that keeping people an arms length away doesn't always work.

The two are pulled together when Sage's daughter finds an unlikely horseback riding mentor in Callan. Can the two of them accept they might be right for each other, or will their pasts lead to them parting ways—or worse?

Don't talk to strangers. Unless, of course, they're wearing boots and a cowboy hat. Then definitely talk to them. My life was perfectly fine. Well, at least up until the night I found out my boyfriend was sleeping with half the damn town. With nowhere to go, I holed up in a motel with whatever I could fit in my car. But not even twenty-four hours after moving into said shit hole, a burly stranger breaks in wearing a skeleton mask. It couldn't get any worse, right? Wrong. Because now this masked man is demanding I move in with him until he gets what he wants—and the thing about cowboys and ranchers? They never back down from a challenge.