Once, the only thing that mattered to me was football - training, playing, and earning my place on the best team at every level. I had it all, and I threw it away with a semester of drugs, alcohol....

First rule of being a nanny? Don’t fall for the single dad, even if he is smoking hot. But that’s exactly what happens when grumpy small-town sheriff Asher Whitlock reluctantly hires me to take care of his daughter for the summer. Neither of us is thrilled with the arrangement, but he’s desperate for help, and I need the money for grad school this fall.

The first time I saw Brinley Knox, she was crying, draped in a ridiculous pink tulle dress for her sweet 16, and cursing the boy who’d broken her heart. I was the hired help, a teenage charity case. She was the daughter of the wealthiest family in Orchid Valley. I knew a girl like Brinley was off-limits. That didn’t stop me from kissing her. Or from promising that if she were ever mine, I’d never let her go.

Football star. Single dad. And once, a long time ago, mine. I’ve spent the better part of a decade forgetting Ford Ellis. If he had just stayed away from Montana, I might have erased the memory of his striking blue eyes and rugged smile forever. Avoiding him was easy when the only place I saw his face was on ESPN—and a remote control could fix that problem.

I thought I’d hit rock bottom when I turned 16. The day I broke my first love's heart, ending things before I could ruin his career as a rock star. But damn, was I wrong. Things got progressively worse from that moment on, until now. Eight years later, when I find myself homeless, jobless, covered in blood, and running from a ghost of my past.