Montana Riverbend

It's May 1996 and Marietta High School English teacher Kate MacCreadie is almost at the end of her rope, torn between the demands of her work and her heavy involvement in helping her younger brother Rob and his wife Melinda take care of their five young children on the MacCreadie family ranch. When Marietta's fine-looking new sheriff, Harrison Pearce, pulls Kate over for her third traffic violation in as many months, they both know it's a sign that something has to give. Kate finds it almost a relief to be told by this calm, strong man to get her life in order, and then she just keeps on seeing him - at school after there's been a suspicious break-in, on the evening of the prom when he's off duty and driving his nephew and friends to the event in one of his brother's gorgeous vintage cars. Late that night, after prom is over, a tragedy at River Bend Park brings Kate and Harrison together yet again, and this time, in the highly charged atmosphere, Kate discovers that she never wants to let him go. But with his divorce still fresh, is Harrison ready for someone new?

Tully Morgan hasn't been back to Marietta for more than a few brief visits since the night of the 1996 senior prom eighteen years ago, when the chance exposure of a long-held family secret sent her running to her uncle in California in shock. She stood up her date Ren Fletcher that night, and she hasn't seen him since. Now she's here for an extended stay, to help take care of her seriously ill mother. It's an edgy reconciliation, the first time that Tully, Patty and Sugar Morgan have been together since that long ago prom night. Tully has had so much anger toward Sugar... can she ever forgive her? And Sugar still has one more secret that needs to be dealt with, one that needs Ren Fletcher's help. Has he forgiven Tully for leaving him in the lurch on prom night? And is there any chance that he and Tully can rekindle what they might once have had, when he's still tied to someone else?

Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Charlie Barnett barely has time to buy new socks, let alone time to fall in love. Spanish street musician Ramona Garrido-Lopez isn't looking for love, either. With her parents depending on her, their only child, all she really wants is to make them happy. Despite the sparks that fly between them, she and Charlie couldn't possibly be serious about each other, when they're committed to lives on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean... could they?

How do you stop being angry at someone when they're gone? Kira Shepherd Blair's older sister Neve died eighteen years ago at River Bend Park, on the night of the 1996 Marietta High School senior prom, and Kira is still mired in feelings she can't resolve. So much of her life has been shadowed by Neve, from the adolescence she spent banished from the family spotlight because Neve was so greedy for it, to the bad marriage she made at twenty-one because she and her parents needed the security and the promise of a future, after Neve's tragic death. Kira is working to make a good life for herself and her ten-year-old son Jake after her divorce and is finally starting to feel that she's getting on track, when Neve's high school boyfriend Casey "Jay" Brown comes back to Marietta and turns everything upside down. Casey has never known in his heart how much he was to blame for what happened to Neve that night, but when he and Kira are forced to work together at the renowned Haraldsen Architectural Foundation in the foothills of the Absaroka Mountains, she leaves him in no doubt as to her opinion on the issue. That's how you stop being angry at someone when they're gone. You channel your anger onto the man you hold responsible, the man who's right here, no matter how heart-stoppingly gorgeous he is.