The Last Mccullen

Could a kidnapping finally lead to the last McCullen finding his way home? If there's one thing Special Agent Ryder Banks hates, it's handcuffing a woman. Tia Jeffries is not a violent person, but her infant son has been abducted—or worse. Determined to find her baby, the pretty single mom agrees to ditch the gun and work undercover with the sexy agent. Posing as a couple desperate to adopt, they find a murky world of baby brokers, scams—and a connection to the McCullens, Ryder's birth family. When bullets start flying, Ryder risks everything to make Tia and her baby his own… The Heroes of Horseshoe Creek

HIS CHILD'S LIFE WAS ON THE LINE—AND TIME WAS RUNNING OUT… Sexy-as-sin rodeo star Brett McCullen is Willow James Howard's past. But when her estranged husband is killed and her son kidnapped, she's forced to accept help from the man who broke her heart. Little does Brett know that the very child he's trying to rescue is his own flesh and blood—the result of a fling years earlier. He can't deny his rising desire at Willow's reappearance…even as he struggles to forgive her secret. But with the ransom deadline looming, Brett must go to extremes to save the family he never knew he wanted…

Ever since Salinger, nine seems to be a magic number when it comes to rendering debut short story collections. Frederic Colier’s A Memoir of Absence is no exception. Embarking on an evocative journey through the heartland of our own delusions, Colier’s terse prose guides us beyond the barren cultural plane of our all-too-malleable American dreams taking us into a realm of intellectual urgency, linguistic renewal, and eventual hope. Here – where relativist cant, contemporary platitudes, and even shocking news become no more than the white noise of a fleeting civilization – there is nothing more alarming than the ensuing silence left by those collisions that never get the chance to take place: In the title story, an estranged father and son are each relegated their own brand of dystopia only to find that it is their respective torments that ineffably bind them to one another. While one pursues impossible love around the globe, the other tries making sense of the void surrounding him. Oddly, it is their parallel misfortunes that find shelter in the harmonious space of absence recalled. Similarly, Lipstick on the Fishbowl depicts how grief often blinds one from seeing the object of loss. As a bereaved businessman searches for the proper way to express loss for his departed wife, he begins to overlook the significance of her passing. As for those in throes of jealousy misreading even the best of intentions, The Depth of Swimming Pool is a somber portrayal of a woman who – in her state of constant apprehension – ends up undermining that which she most desires. But whether it is observers dreaming of becoming participants, or the emotionally alienated hordes for whom pain becomes a final solace, the terrain traversed by Colier’s nine stories is neither one that would fill a postcard nor one that sports the trendy wasteland so readily employed by our time’s countdown artists. As the lonely overweight opera singer Josephina considers the abject proposals of a sexless man, or the abused young woman in Cristianos y Moros finally returns home to confront her dismissive parents, we note with relief that Colier’s intention is not to flesh out some vague musings about our era but to attend to those who straddle the crossroads of a world where choosing a direction is no longer a value in itself. If there is a poignancy to be had, A Memoir of Absence says we’re to find it in those uncertain moments when event is temporarily subsumed by interpretation. This does not mean that observations made by characters are lucid or objective. On the contrary, it is our vulnerability to catch phrases, our compromised visions, and our pathos while estimating our own suffering hearts that bring integrity to our lives. Colier’s short stories are the fragments of a lost anthem – the disparate melodies that once made up what we mystically referred to as, the human spirit.

A missing sister, a murdered father and a dangerous reunion years in the making. The last place Honey Granger wants to be is Tumbleweed, Texas—the judgmental town that made her childhood a living hell. But when Sheriff Harrison Hawk informs her that her alcoholic father has been murdered, she reluctantly joins his investigation. The sexy sheriff has long suspected Honey’s father in his sister’s disappearance and vows to solve both mysteries. But keeping his professional distance from the vulnerable blonde proves nearly impossible. He’ll guard her 24/7 until her life is out of danger. But how will she feel if Harrison proves her father was a murderer? Badge of Justice