Axford Brothers

Living in a treehouse? Unavoidable. Falling for the grumpy lumberjack hottie next door? Unthinkable. After a viral PR disaster torpedoes my marketing career, I flee Manhattan. The only place left to land? A fairy-tale treehouse in a pickle-obsessed Vermont town, left to me by an uncle I barely knew. Yes, I said pickles. No, I’m not okay. But I’m only here temporarily. Just long enough to regroup, let the notoriety die down, and figure out my next steps in peace. Unfortunately, my new neighbor has other ideas.

Falling in love with my straight best friend? Tragically inevitable. Telling him? Completely out of the question. Everyone in Winsome knows Robbie and I are a matched set. A package deal. Ames and Robbie, Robbie and Ames. He’s the calm to my chaos. The sun shining through my rain cloud. The guy who convinced me to be a firefighter. The man who’s known every single thing about me since we were thirteen… Except for the teeny, tiny, inconsequential fact that I’ve been in love with him for years. I planned to take this secret to the grave. Robbie’s straight. He’s engaged.

They say everyone’s good at something, right? Well, my superpower happens to be making catastrophically bad decisions. Sabotaging my father’s multi-million-dollar ad campaign because his client was a homophobic jerk? Done. Accidentally causing a viral scandal? Check. Confessing the whole thing, then road-tripping from Manhattan to pickle-obsessed Winsome, Vermont, to apologize to the poor guy who got blamed? You bet your gherkin. After this, I’m done with impulsive behavior for good. No more reckless choices. No more big gestures… Until Carlos Morales sits beside me at the bar.

Failing to tell him that my family is a bunch of professional thieves? Small oversight. I left the Callahan family business years ago. These days I’m a law-abiding citizen. A photographer who takes nothing but pictures. A man who’s learned not to get greedy for anything… or anyone. But my family hasn’t gotten that memo, so I expect my week at family camp to be filled with guilt-trippy attempts to lure me back into the fold. Until Holden Axford comes along… and everything goes axe backwards.