She’ll be inked on this cowboy’s heart forever.
Saint is on the run for her life.
When her car breaks down in a small town in Montana, she’s forced to rely on the kindness of a tattooed and devilish stranger. Dante may be offering her a job and a place to live, but to Saint, it’s nothing short of a lifeline when she needs it most. She’s not about to repay him for all his help by bringing the danger to his door, and that’s why she promises to be gone by the end of the month.
Back on the road and out of his life.
Except with every day that passes, Dante and Saint learn more about each other, and the looming month deadline seems harder and harder to keep. Saint hasn’t felt seen in her life in so very long, and Dante understands her in a way no one else ever has—she thinks she might just understand him too.
But a small town in the middle of nowhere isn’t enough cover from the threat that sent Saint running from the only home she’s ever known, and before she gets the chance to tell Dante how she feels—or to leave before anyone gets hurt—danger shows up armed to the teeth.
It isn’t until Saint comes face to face with her worst fears that she finally understands that some people are worth sticking around for. And she’s willing to do whatever it takes to stay alive long enough to do just that.
General Release Date: 10th June 2025
Shit.
Saint sent up a silent apology to the grandmother who had done her very best to steer her away from profanity, and pounded the heel of her hand against the dashboard.
The fuel gauge didn’t budge.
The ancient sedan had gotten her several hundred miles from Seattle, packed with Saint’s entire life, but while the gauge normally jumped a notch or two when she turned the engine over, this time all she got was a slow, steady whine. She had pulled off the interstate to try to find cheap gas, hoping to make it at least to Helena for the night, but what difference would it have made? She had less than forty bucks to her name—in cash, at least—and she couldn’t keep playing guess how much gas is in the tank as she navigated the windy, isolated mountain roads.
Washington had been a natural, wild place, but she had grown up in the city. Montana, from what little she had seen of it, was a place out of time, barely inhabited, and very much at the mercy of Mother Nature.
As if listening to her thoughts, a dark cloud rolled over the soft yellow of the late afternoon sky, and thunder cracked loud and echoing just beyond the mountain ridge.
Don’t panic. Take a moment to breathe. In one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, and out one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi.
She’d been prone to panic attacks as a child, after she’d gone to live with her grandmother, and she reached for Gram Violet’s mantra now, breathing in the soft smell of her grandmother’s quilt, folded on the seat beside her, an old coffee she’d been nursing for the better part of a day, the soft patterning of cold rain against the bare trees just beyond her windows.
She breathed. In and out, just like she’d been doing all her life.
The car probably wasn’t damaged beyond repair. She’d need to get the fuel gauge checked, or she ran the risk of seizing the engine or something equally permanent, and since she’d been using the car for both transportation and shelter for the last three days, that was a non-starter. She took stock of her surroundings, just as Gram had taught her to do when she needed grounding, and caught sight of a neon bar sign just down the road, the entrance to the parking lot not far from where she had pulled over at the first sputter.
Please start.
She willed the engine to turn over, and after a moment, it did, though not without voicing loud, squealing protests. Chances were, she was dealing with more than low fuel. She’d been pushing the car too hard and too fast the last few days, and it hadn’t been in great shape to begin with.
But Saint hadn’t had a choice.
It seemed she hadn’t had a lot of choices in a very long time.
By some act of God, if Saint still believed in that sort of thing, she was able to cover the distance to the parking lot entrance, making it just far enough to slide into a spot at the far end of the lot, before the engine stalled out in a shuddering, frame-shaking sigh. Saint put the sorry thing in park, not that it would make a damned difference, pulled the keys from the ignition, and let out a long, shuddering sigh of her own.
She was stuck.
In…
Where the hell am I?
After days on the road, she’d lost track of the states and towns she’d driven though, one eye on the rearview mirror, with the goal of putting as much distance as possible between her old life and whatever came next.
New York City.
Gram Violet’s dream.
And still thousands of miles away from the small town in the Montana mountains where her car was stalled and out of gas, and she didn’t have the money for a hotel, let alone a new fuel gauge.
Somewhere in the car, there was a box of day-old donuts, and she turned to search through the piles of belongings in the back seat, nearly bumping her head on the roof when another crack of thunder crashed loud and hard through the air, immediately followed by the sharp dagger of bright lightning that split the sky around her.
Fuck. This.
She didn’t bother to apologize to Gram that time. Violet would have told her to spend a few of those precious dollars she had left on a hot meal and some temporary respite from the biblical storm bursting free around her.
So Saint grabbed her coat, purse and keys, and darted out into the rain.
It took two seconds flat before she was soaked to the bone, the November chill seeping into her skin and promising to stay, her hair matted against her back, and her fingers already going numb at the tips. But before she could die of hypothermia, she was through the door and into the warm caress of the bar.
With the exception of the friendly waitress who gave her a nod and held up a menu from the other side of the room, no one paid her much mind. The floor was wet, and muddy boot prints crossed the entryway, indicating that she wasn’t the only one who’d been caught in the deluge. Whatever big-city fear she’d had about attracting too much attention, like she’d walk into the saloon in a one-horse town, and everyone would turn her way, quickly evaporated. It was warm and cozy in the bar, with a soft golden glow from hanging bistro lights, and the inviting smell of grease and salt, and a sudden wave of hunger washed over her. She’d been surviving on donuts, granola bars and truck stop coffee for three days, and she was absolutely starving.
And tired.
So, incredibly, tired.
“Sit anywhere, hon,” the waitress called. “I’ll grab you some water.”
Saint felt like she was moving in slow motion, but she finally settled into a booth at the far end of the bar, the worn cushion soft under her tired legs. She’d been stuffed into the little sedan for so many days now, she was certain her butt was permanently imprinted on the seat, and her lower back ached from the worn springs and long-gone padding.
And from the clenching of her muscles for three days straight.
I need a plan.
This wasn’t going to work. Not without a strategy. Running for the hills—or away from the hills, as the case was—had felt like the right idea at the time, the only idea at the time. But she’d coasted into town on luck and adrenaline, and with an all-but-dead car in the parking lot of a sleepy mountain town, in the middle of a torrential storm, she was fuck out of that luck, and coming down from her adrenaline in a very serious way.
“You must be freezing, hon.” The pretty waitress sidled up to the booth, pulling Saint from her moment of self-pity. Food first, then strategy. “I’m Maisie. Let’s get you started with something warm. How about a coffee? Or maybe something stronger?”
“Do you have green tea?” Saint asked, her voice unused and unfamiliar after days alone on the road.
“Coming right up,” Maisie replied. “Let me see if I can’t find you some paper towels in the back too.” She twirled away with the expertise of a long-time server, collected two bottles of beer from the table to her left then disappeared through the back door to the kitchen. It was such a familiar scene, a type of movement so ingrained in Saint’s own muscles, that she could practically smell the chicken parm and simmering red sauce from the restaurant back home.
Not that she had a home anymore.
But she did have skills, skills that might just get her out of a sticky spot.
Sticky spot. Ha.
That was putting it mildly. She needed a strategy, and it was staring her dead in the face. Stay here in this Montana mountain town. Just until she could get back on both feet. Just until she could figure out her next steps.
So, when the waitress came back with a hot tea and a few dry dishrags, Saint did the only thing she could do. She swallowed her pride, opened her mouth, and asked, “Any chance you’re hiring?”
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