Showing results by author "Alicia Pace" in All Categories

Chocolatier Lanie Heaven has good friends, a booming business, and the adoration of the citizens of Merritt, Alabama. But she also has a secret. After the devastating breakup with her longtime college boyfriend, she lost a baby and the hope of ever having a child - the thing she desires above all else.

When defenseman Bryant Taylor and Gabriella Charbonnet find themselves thrown together at a society fundraiser, sparks fly. But Gabriella wants nothing to do with hockey players, aside from her brother, who just so happens to be Bryant’s best friend. The first rule of the bro code? Don’t mess with sisters. There are plenty of reasons why starting a relationship would be all kinds of wrong, yet walking away from each other doesn’t prove to be as easy as they thought.

Evans Pemberton has always had a problem saying no - to her overbearing Mississippi Delta family, to her business mentor’s push to expand her thriving pie shop, and to her lifelong crush, Jake Champagne. But Jake chose her beauty-queen cousin three years ago and ghosted on their close friendship. When he comes to her small town in Alabama with a new pro-hockey franchise, Evie fears she’ll lose her heart all over again. Of course, she'll forgive him like the good Southern woman she is, but anything more than that is off the table. So why can’t she stop baking for him?

No matter how many critics call him an artisan or how much money people are willing to pay for his handcrafted furniture, Will Garrett will always be the son of a drunk from Mill Town. Though he has admired Dr. Arabelle Avery ever since his teenage busboy days at the Merritt County Club, he has no aspirations where she is concerned. A boy from across the tracks doesn't go calling on a state senator's daughter.

Emile Giroux has vowed he will be everything his stepfather is not: cultured, charming, sophisticated, and - above all else - a rich, successful NHL star. One of the top goalies in the league, the French Canadian strives for more, still haunted by his troubled childhood. Amy Callahan was a freelance professional organizer until an ambitious, domineering boyfriend took over her life and cleaned out her bank account. When Emile finds Amy literally kicked to the curb, he seizes his latest chance to rescue a damsel in distress - only Amy doesn’t want to play that game.

Ambitious and straight-laced, Nashville Sound forward Jarrett MacPherson is determined to walk in the footsteps of his All-American hockey-playing grandfather. He prides himself on doing the right thing above all, with ethics so sharp they could cut the heart out of a saint. Merry Sweet toils by day in a paper shop and coffee bar in Sound Town and at night at the arena, cleaning, selling concessions, and taking tickets. Jarrett notices and admires Merry’s determination and believes her when she says she needs money for law school, even offering to help solve her financial problems.

Nashville Sound enforcer Thor Eastrom has been married, divorced, engaged, and dumped. But the hardest thing he’s ever done is bury his twin babies. The last thing he wants or needs in his life right now is a relationship. All he wants is one more year in the NHL, so he can go out as a member of the 20-year club. Tradd Davenport’s dream is to succeed in the hardscrabble world of country music. She has the talent and the drive - and she’s ready to work hard for something that her father’s money can’t buy her.

When New York Yankee Marc MacNeal comes to Merritt, Alabama, for a charity golf tournament, he's shocked to be reunited with his ex-fiancee Bailey Watkins. Their college romance came to a bitter end when he was called up to the majors and the tabloids began printing rubbish about him, dubbing Marc the new bad boy of baseball.

Tolly Lee is pearls, debutant balls, and old silver on the breakfast table. She is ashamed of something she did 13 years ago, but she was only 16, and she didn't set out to do it. Still, she should not have led college senior Nathan Scott to think she was his age. She never imagined a football star like him would keep calling her, but it was mostly a long-distance relationship, and it's not like they had sex. In the end she paid for her sins with her heart, and she might not be done paying.

The last time Brantley Kincaid had an argument with someone, he was 18 years old - and he regrets it like he will never regret anything again. If only he had not balked at going to pick up his grandfather that day, his mother would not have driven into the path of a truck, and there would be two fewer graves in Merritt Cemetery. Though a frequent visitor, he hasn't lived in Merritt since burying his mother and grandfather. But now he's coming back, and it might not be so easy to hide behind his wit and charisma.

Professor Bebe Wellesley comes from a long line of psychics but has inherited just enough of the family gifts to make her peculiar rather than of very much use. The handsome bookseller who is so proficient at obtaining the obscure texts she needs to teach her college parapsychology classes caught her eye a while back, but why bother? She’s learned the hard way that men don’t like women with a supernatural bent - no matter how paltry their power.

Hyacinth Dawson’s life runs like clockwork - and she likes it that way. Spreadsheets, lists, and plans have never failed her, and now they’re going to help her get her bridal shop on the popular reality TV show All Dressed in White. But it won’t happen unless she can land a celebrity client...maybe one of those new NHL players in town. Enter Robbie McTavish, a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants Scottish defenseman who can’t help but meddle when he spies a bride in Hyacinth’s shop wearing a completely wrong dress for her figure.

Russian enforcer Luka Zadorov is no fan of the South. Being traded to Alabama has meant swapping the glory of northern hockey for playing second fiddle to college football, but his plan to get traded back hits an interesting snag when he crosses paths with Ava Grace. Maybe the South has something to offer after all…