Blue sage: He'd come for a reason .... It had taken fifteen years for the small town of Morey's Falls, in the Montana foothills, to come to terms with a tragedy that had touched all their lives. Now, Tanner, the son of the man who had been the cause of it all, had returned. His arrival stirred up old memories, feelings . . . and for Ellie Johnson Lundquist, it changed her life. Tanner was a loner who wanted no one's help. But Ellie looked behind the facade and found an intensity strong enough to join them together and put the past to rest, and in doing so they found themselves as well.

Her bachelor challenge: Left hand, ring finger...Best friend Bridgett Owens's gigantic diamond winked at the eldest Deveraux son, Chase, like a coy madam at an old-time bordello. The fun-loving playboy of Charleston, South Carolina, wasn't supposed to go gaga over the grown-up daughter of the family housekeeper. Except welling up in the bachelor's brain were protective, intimate feelings that he just couldn't - didn't want to - discount. But can a man who's definitely not the marrying kind turn into a (gasp) committed groom-to-be...especially when nothing but bad luck has burnished his romantic record?