From USA Today and international bestselling author of The Simple Wild comes a sweeping second-chance, forbidden romance set against the rugged beauty of northern Ontario.

Emery McAllister once dreamed of leaving Cold River with the boy next door, but one devastating night destroyed their future and left her heart carefully guarded. Twenty years later, she's built a life of control: running the town's police detachment, raising her daughter, and keeping a fragile peace with her ex-husband, the mayor.


She's certain she has moved on until the day she has dreaded—and secretly hoped for—finally arrives.


Logan Landry is home.

After two decades behind bars for being in the wrong place at the wrong time—and the choices that haunted him ever since—Logan returns to his family's bison ranch carrying the weight of everything he lost, but especially Emery. Friendship is all he dares hope for now, but seeing her ignites a fire he thought long extinguished.


When a teenage girl disappears and old wounds reopen, Logan becomes Cold River's favorite suspect, despite his airtight alibi. As distrust closes in, Emery must choose between the life she's built . . . and the love she can't let go.