Showing results by author "Jean Brashear" in All Categories

Steph Hargrove was a bombshell, an intrepid woman operating in the business world with guts, brains and daring. She was accustomed to going after whatever she wanted until a man she called friend betrayed her and the company she’d helped build. Since that time, she’s been a shadow of the wild, wicked woman who’d carved a swath through her world. Gavin O’Neill is an artisan with wood, a gardener, a restorer of battered homes and a savior of strays. When first he meets the wounded woman who postures as invincible and worldly, the sadness in her eyes draws him even more than her lush figure does.

Empire builder Dominic Santorini is surrounded by women angling to share the luxurious life his wealth will buy. Eccentric, colorful tomboy Lexie Grayson encounters a hot guy in a hotter classic car broken down on the side of the road, and an afternoon as his mechanic leads to a scorching night with a man she knows only as Nikos—but when dawn arrives, he’s vanished, never to be seen again. She buries her heartache in her new job, staging a launch for a video game that will give her a chance to snoop around for clues that the company is responsible for stealing from her best friend.

Brilliant and driven cardiac surgeon Diana Morgan’s whole life centers around her career, now threatened by an injury that may prove insurmountable. She is desperate enough to accept a forced sabbatical to the Davis Mountains of West Texas, where she meets Rafael Sandoval, a former Special Forces medic who understands exactly how it feels to have the life you planned taken from you. After losing his men and nearly losing his life, Rafe has returned home and found a measure of peace combining his Western medical training with the curanderismo or folk healing traditions of his Latino heritage.

It’s the first Christmas in Sweetgrass Springs, Texas for several newcomers who have found a real home for the first time—or found home again. As Jackson Gallagher works to save his hometown from withering away by relocating his business empire there, the only gift he really wants is to marry the teenage sweetheart he thought he’d lost forever—but Veronica Patton Butler has other hearts to care for, however much she loves Jackson. Bridger Calhoun is more than ready to make Penelope Gallagher his bride, but however much she adores him, Shark Girl is dragging her heels on tying the knot.

Texas rancher Case Marshall is driving a truck instead of his hell-raiser Harley after a crooked partner nearly bankrupts his Flying M Ranch. New Orleans socialite Samantha St. Claire never dreamed she'd be on the run from the mob--or that she'd find her white knight at a truck stop. Their worlds couldn't be less compatible or their attraction more high-octane…but there are dangers and shocking secrets to battle before they can dream of a future together.

Clarice Sutton, daughter of privilege, was raised to lead society, but that life feels empty, and she's taken a job her parents abhor: police department psychologist. Santino "Saint" Valdez—hardnosed detective who is anything but saintly—is under investigation by Internal Affairs for killing a predator who richly deserved it. Now he's supposed to spill his guts to Miss Prim and Prissy? No way—not ever.

Yet the powerful attraction both feel from their first meeting complicates both their lives, and time spent together only makes their improbable bond grow.

Gifted pastry chef Spike Ridley knows most everything about cooking, but the recipe for home has eluded her. Have mixer will travel has been her motto, and now she has lost the one person who’d loved her from childhood. When she crashes into famed quarterback Tate Ransom, life takes an abrupt turn. Tate has suffered a deep personal loss of his own, and coupled with a career-threatening injury, the ground beneath him is shifting. Forced into a road trip toward uncertain futures, the snarky sprite and celebrity jock get glimpses beneath the other’s veneer, and what they find surprises them.

Detective Sean Fitzgerald is hot on the trail of a man who is key to breaking a human trafficking ring, but he needs a way to get close without arousing suspicion. His opportunity comes in the form of film star Annabelle Quinn, who's in town and in need of a bodyguard. Her best friend is his top suspect, and he can use the connection to break his case. But when Annabelle comes mean so much more than a means to an end for Sean, his objectivity is in danger, and he's painfully aware that the lies between them could doom any hope for a future for them.

The Book Babes reading group began as five women wanting to talk books—but now they've become family. There's romance author Ava Sinclair, organizer and backbone; happily married mother of five Ellie Preston, the heart of the group; elegant art gallery owner Sylvie Everett; single mom and sociology professor Luisa Martinez; and ambitious attorney Laken Foster, the wild child of the bunch. For several years now, they've met monthly and discussed the current book a little—and dissected their lives and loves far more often. But now change is rippling through the group.

Vanessa Porter's brilliant career as a hotelier goes up in flames after a scandal, and she pours herself into rehabbing an old mansion to become a boutique hotel, doing much of the work herself because her funds are running out. Hotshot adventure photographer Dane Sullivan's career is grounded after a near-death fall, and he's no longer sure he wants the life of death-defying risk that energized him for so long. While he's recovering and assessing his options, his kid sister Jilly volunteers him to help her friend Vanessa with handyman skills he and his brothers learned from their dad.

For Michael Cavanaugh’s entire life, his mother has kept a shocking secret: that she was married once before she married his father, and she gave birth to that man’s child. Stunned that the mother who’d loved him so would abandon a child and furious with his mother’s deceit, he sets out to find the older brother he has always wanted. Ian McLaren has a full plate: a wife he adores, a baby on the way, a ranch to run and a town that depends on him. When a stranger arrives in their small town with the staggering news that he and Ian share a mother, his world tilts off its axis.

Jackson Gallagher's teenage rebellion cost him everything: his home, his family and the girl who could only love him in secret. Seventeen years later, a wildly successful tycoon, Jackson is drawn back to Sweetgrass Springs to confront his past: the father who banished him, the small town that turned its back on him...and the woman he has never been able to forget.