Adventures In Amethyst Series Book 12 Unlucky In Love

Unlucky in love and unable to count their blessings during the Thanksgiving holiday, Layla and Adam find themselves jilted at the same time by the person they assumed was their soulmate. Heartbroken, snowed in and forced to share the only available cabin in town, they have no choice but to re-evaluate everything they've ever wanted in life...and love.

Rich and superficial, Apple Wooten knows best that she's wasted her life, in and out of rehab, betraying those she considers friends, and never forming attachments with anyone but her unhealthily cloistered family. When her brother announces he's leaving the family law firm to marry a girl in Amethyst, Wisconsin, Apple is prodded by her mother to rush in and talk sense into him. The one person in Amethyst who will give her the time of day is Bailey ?Bay? Johnson. Only Bailey never seems bothered by her cruel teasing in the past any more than he's affected by her humbled, fumbling attempts at kindness now. A bad experience with love when he was young taught Bay that reaching for forbidden fruit like the treacherous, beautiful disaster, and?recently?child-like and fragile Apple Wooten could turn out to be the worst mistake he's ever made.

Donnie Garner's best friend Adam is easy to admire, given that he's made something of himself as a pilot for a large commercial airline. Donnie still lives in Amethyst, still works in his dad's vehicle repair shop with no other career aspirations. Donnie isn't blind to the shoddy way Adam treats his high school girlfriend and unofficial fianc?e, Tally Johnson, cheating on her without remorse. Almost unconsciously, Donnie finds himself in love with his best friend's girl and trying to make her see she'd be better off with him. But, even when Tally falls in love with Donnie instead, she can't easily turn away from the father of the child she never expected to be carrying?

(3 in 1 volume) including: Halloween: NEVER A BRIDE, Book 11: Once upon a time, Ben Johnson believed he had forever sewn up with Layla. But fairy tales rarely come true in reality. Long before her nephew was in a hunting accident and she blamed Ben for not preventing it, the two of them had broken up, citing irreconcilable differences. Layla hadn't wanted his family to know the truth. Following the accident, she walked out--for good, he assumed. Charlize Seagrave never fit in anywhere, drawn to danger, darkness, and drugs. For years, she was the guitarist and songwriter for a death-metal band and involved with the frontman who only encouraged her deadly addictions. In order to hide from Freyr, Charlize checked herself rehab. Later, clean--another first in her life--she attended her new friend's wedding and met Ben. Despite their instant connection, he was supposedly in a committed relationship and she had no interest whatsoever in commitment. If only Ben wasn't so unlike every other person she's ever known. If only she didn't feel like he alone understands and gets her. When Charlize returns to Amethyst at Halloween, Ben knows loneliness has nothing to do with his feelings for her. His attraction to her the last time she was in Amethyst wasn't something he was comfortable with, despite that he and Layla had broken up even before his family learned of the fact. But now Layla is implying she's had a change of heart. Ben wonders if this is all getting too complicated...or if the solution is as simple as a kiss. Thanksgiving: UNLUCKY IN LOVE, Book 12: Layla Dupriest's father was killed in a hunting accident when she was a child so, when the man who was once the love of her life, Benji Johnson, encourages her nephew to go hunting and he's hurt, she blames Ben. Months later, she can see she wasn't fair. Adam Schaefer has loved Tally Johnson, Benji's sister, since he was a teenager, but his love of flying and freedom surpassed anything that might clip his wings like a wife, monogamy, marriage, and settling down. The last thing he expected was for her to fall for his best friend--and to have that man's baby. Unlucky in love and unable to count their blessings during the Thanksgiving holiday, Layla and Adam find themselves jilted at the same time. Heartbroken, snowed in, and forced to share the only available cabin in town, they have no choice but to re-evaluate everything they've ever wanted in life...and love. Christmas: SHOTGUN WEDDING, Book 13: Trevor and Eden were married right out of high school. She'd believed she was pregnant, but that hadn't been her sole motivation. Wildly in love with Trevor Johnson, she'd worried he was becoming disenchanted with her, his attention consumed by the needy and seductive Delaney Foster who came to Amethyst every year with her family. In the years Eden and Trever have been married, she's never felt quite secure in the belief that he married her by choice, in love. During the Christmas season, plagued by unspoken guilt and doubts, she finds herself again competing with a soon-to-be divorced, distraught, and disgustingly gorgeous Delaney. Eden is obsessively aware she's no longer as young, thin, or sexy as she'd been before she had three sons. To top off her growing stress, Eden has discovered she and Trevor's oldest son and his girlfriend, in their senior year of high school, are sexually active. The last thing they need is another shotgun wedding and the potential that a marriage undertaken for the sake of a baby isn't necessarily one of choice or love.

As a teenager, Roman "Bud" Marasek was shy and withdrawn, a farmer's kid who grew up to be a farmer himself. The first girl he loved was Briar Sankey, a popular girl with big, beautiful eyes and a wild clothing and makeup style. It took him years to work up the courage to ask her out, and their date was the best night of his life. But, when she never answered his calls after that and started dating the star athlete, he'd realized he'd only been wishing for the moon. Years passed, Bud fell in love with Evette, had a daughter, and his wife died unexpectedly. Raising Harper hasn't been easy alone, but at forty-seven he feels completely unprepared for being both father and mother to a moody teenage daughter with too many boyfriends and life-and-death meltdowns. He turns to Briar for help. Briar is running her mother's restaurant, has finally toned down her style, and, unbelievably, has never married and seems content to be alone. Looks are deceiving... Briar had spent her life confident she had all the time in the world to make a life for herself and any choice she wanted. At forty-seven, she no longer has the same choices. With both of her parents gone, she's the only one left to run the restaurant, her mother's legacy to the small town of Amethyst and what she considers her "patch" in the big, wide world. Additionally, the few eligible men in the area don't interest her. Letting slip an unintended faux pas, a friend of both Briar and Bud reveals to Briar that Bud has had a thirty year crush on her. Suddenly his reason for coming by the cafe nearly every day of his life takes on startling meaning. In truth, she'd barely noticed him most of the time. When he asks her for help with Harper, she can't refuse. And suddenly she's seeing Bud in a whole new light...and falling in love with the sweet, shy man who's been there all along.

Trevor and Eden were married right out of high school. She'd believed she was pregnant, but that hadn't been her sole motivation. Wildly in love with Trevor Johnson, she'd worried he was becoming disenchanted with her, his attention consumed by the needy and seductive Delaney Foster who came to Amethyst every year with her family. In the years Eden and Trever have been married, she's never felt quite secure in the belief that he married her by choice, in love. During the Christmas season, plagued by unspoken guilt and doubts, she finds herself again competing with a soon-to-be divorced, distraught, and disgustingly gorgeous Delaney. Eden is obsessively aware she's no longer as young, thin, or sexy as she'd been before she had three sons. To top off her growing stress, Eden has discovered she and Trevor's oldest son and his girlfriend, in their senior year of high school, are sexually active. The last thing they need is another shotgun wedding and the potential that a marriage undertaken for the sake of a baby isn't necessarily one of choice or love.

Every rose has its thorn... Reece Childs finally has his rose--Lona Rose, that is, a woman from his past and everything he's ever wanted after a lifetime of the kind of transgressions he holds inside the darkest part of him...and never, ever wants Lona to find out about. He'd been as close as a kiss to having her as his wife, too. After a whirlwind courtship, he and Lona flew to Las Vegas to get hitched. Having more than one disastrous divorce already under her belt had shattered Lona's illusions about the institution of marriage and made her superstitious about taking that journey again. So they came back and let everyone in town believe they were married. Now their little daughter Honey is two years old and life seems perfect. Reece never anticipated the thorny, black sins from his past to destroy his present and future happiness. When Reece came back to Amethyst and fell for Lona Rose, he'd left behind truck driving and everything associated with it. He'd had no clue that Angelina Batista, his "port" in the city he made his most frequent run to, was pregnant. She shows up in Amethyst, demanding in no uncertain terms that he be a father to and provider for their son, who's not much older than Honey. Not only has Angelina picked up and left everything else behind to pursue him, but she has medical proof that the boy is his. The world drops out on Lona, who confronts secrets about the man she loves that she could never have imagined in her worst nightmares. She's furious and intent on doing everything to drive this overbearing usurper as far from her happily-ever-after as she can. She's equally unwilling to share her man with someone he never loved, regardless of the intimacy in their uncommitted relationship. Yet she soon suspects she's fighting a losing battle because, even to keep her happy, Reece can't turn away from his own son...

At the ripe old age of thirty-six, Clay Wooten is tired of his law career and his insane, meddling family. Between constantly having to rescue his younger sister from her life-and-death antics and his parents' high-handed belief that they can manage his life better than he can, he wants out. At the very least, he wants to escape long enough to figure out on his own which direction to follow for his future. Harper Marasek had spent her teenage years wanting nothing more than to escape the stifling, suffocating small town she was born and raised in. When the charming and much-too-old-for-her Clay Wooten passed through Amethyst when she was fifteen years old, she found herself smitten...and a few years later she headed to New York to start college and learn how to be an independent woman. Harper secretly hoped to meet up with Clay and, though for the years she was in college they shared an off-and-on intimacy that could never be enough for her, she unfathomably finds after getting her degree that she misses Amethyst, her family and old friends, and the small town values she'd dismissed as old-fashioned when she was younger. With the offer of a job waiting for her in her hometown...and a marriage proposal from her high school boyfriend...Harper contacts Clay to say goodbye forever. Clay has spent a lifetime unwilling to allow himself to be shackled by anyone or anything except his family. Women have merely been a means to an end and unfettered pleasure for him. But, realizing he's losing Harper, he suddenly wants nothing more than to hold on tight to the best part of his life. On the pretense of getting away from his family, he suggests to Harper that they take a road trip, to end in Amethyst, for auld lang syne. Harper has resigned herself to never capturing Clay's heart, but she's loved him for as long as she can remember. How can she refuse his offer when her happiest moments have been spent with this man?