She was born invisible—until the wrong cowboy saw everything. Now she’s done hiding. And he’s about to find out just how hard a quiet girl can ride.
She’s the ranch girl who never got looked at twice.
He’s the whiskey prince who set everything on fire.
Corrie Raleigh has spent her whole life in the shadows—quiet, careful, tucked behind a wall of obedience and duty.
Nobody sees her.
Not until Grant Hollis stumbles into her life with whiskey on his breath and something wild in his eyes.
When gunfire shatters her world and secrets claw their way out of the dirt, Corrie finds herself pulled straight into the center of a war she never saw coming.
Grant’s a dangerous man to love.
And Corrie? She’s done being quiet.
If she’s going to fall, she’ll do it hard. Cold, hard—as reckless reins.
Reader advisory: This book includes a scene depicting the injury and death of a horse.
General Release Date: 21st July 2026
Downtown Calhoun on Christmas Eve was all strung up like a postcard come to life—strings of gold light tangled through the oak trees, red ribbons wrapped around the lampposts, and that soft Tennessee drizzle that never quite turned to snow. The air smelled like roasted pecans, wet pavement, and wood smoke from the pop-up cider stalls that lined the square.
Corrie shoved her hands deeper into her coat pockets, her breath puffing white. She’d worn her favorite red scarf—the one Mam said made her look “almost festive”—and her boots were already speckled with salt.
Ethan and Amara were walking ahead, fingers laced, heads bent together under a shared umbrella. He looked softer now—less like the man who’d spent half his life trying not to feel, and more like someone who’d finally let himself fall. Amara’s laughter had that effect—it cut through the cold like sunlight.
Corrie smiled, even as it pinched a little. She was happy for them—God, she was—but being the tagalong third wheel on a night like this had a way of turning her heart inside out.
When Amara stopped to kiss Ethan under the big, lighted tree, Corrie turned away before she could start feeling lonely about it. “I’m gonna grab a cider,” she called, not sure either of them heard.
She slipped down one of the side streets, where the lights were dimmer, quieter, and that’s when she saw him.
Grant Hollis.
Leaning against the counter of the old bourbon stand, talking to one of the vendors. A dark wool coat stretched across his shoulders, open at the throat to show a hint of flannel and skin. He was older now, rougher than the boy she remembered from the county fairs and parades. His beard was thicker, hair a little longer, and there was a careless confidence in the way he stood—like the world bent a little when he looked at it.
He didn’t see her. He never did.
He smiled at something the vendor said, and it damn near undid her. That slow, crooked grin that had once decorated every daydream she’d ever been stupid enough to have.
Corrie remembered being fifteen, sitting on the bleachers at the county rodeo, watching him ride. The whole crowd had been cheering for Grant Hollis, the chaos prince. She’d been cheering too, but not for the win. For the way he looked up at the stands after—eyes shining, dust in his hair—and smiled like sin itself had manners.
Now, a decade later, she still felt that same tug in her chest, only sharper. He was ten years older, worldly, probably dating some impossibly polished woman who said words like stock options and yacht week. And she was just…her. A ranch girl with hay in her hair and a filly back home that refused to be broken.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. The motion lifted the hem of his coat and she caught a glimpse of his hand—strong, scarred, veins that traced up his wrist like a map of bad decisions and good ol’-fashioned work.
Corrie swallowed hard.
It was stupid, really. The crush that had survived the better part of a decade, through college, heartbreak, and too many quiet nights wondering what it would be like to be noticed by someone like him.
Grant Hollis didn’t see girls like her. He saw women who made entrances.
She turned before he could catch her staring, clutching her paper cup of cider like it might steady her. Back at the square, Ethan and Amara were spinning slow circles under the lights, her laughter carrying over the hum of carols and conversation.
Corrie smiled, heart sore but steady.
Maybe love isn’t something that comes like lightning—maybe it’s something you stumble into, one cold December night at a time.
Still…she let herself look back once.
Grant was walking away now, coat collar turned up, hands tucked deep in his pockets. The lights glinted in his hair, and for a heartbeat, it felt like he was walking out of her dreams and into something real.
* * * *
The ranch was quiet that night. So quiet she could hear the horses shifting in the barn through the open window, the soft snorts of breath against winter air. Somewhere out past the field, a coyote called, lonely and sharp.
Corrie lay on her side beneath the quilt Mam had pieced together from scraps of old dresses and feed sacks. The wood stove in the next room had gone low, leaving the air cool enough to make her breath ghost above the pillow.
She couldn’t sleep.
Too much had happened—too much to settle.
A brother.
Even now the word felt foreign, fragile, like a thing she might break if she said it aloud. Ethan Kane. Flesh and blood. Same father, different world. She’d grown up thinking she was nobody’s anything. Then he’d shown up with those guarded eyes and quiet hands, offering to buy her breakfast like it might fix the years between them.
It hadn’t, not really. But it was something.
He’d come to supper once a week since, sitting awkwardly at the kitchen table while Mam fussed over him and Corrie tried to find the right words. She never did. Still, she caught him glancing at her sometimes—like he was memorizing something he’d lost long ago.
That had to count for something.
Tonight, the sky was bright enough to hurt. The stars felt close, fierce things—burning like promises no one could quite keep. Corrie pulled the curtain back, resting her chin on the sill.
Down below, frost shimmered across the paddock. Marigold’s breath steamed in the moonlight as she pawed the ground, restless in her stall. The filly would race come spring, if everything went right. Corrie whispered a small prayer that it would.
And then she saw it—a flash across the black. Quick, clean, gone in an instant.
A shooting star.
Her breath caught. It had been years since she’d seen one. She didn’t believe in magic, not really. But something in her chest stirred—something childlike and aching. So she made a wish, quiet and foolish.
Let there be more.
More laughter. More mornings that didn’t feel like ghosts. Maybe…maybe even love.
The wind picked up outside, carrying the faint scent of cedar smoke and something sweet—bourbon, maybe, from a neighbor’s fire. For no good reason, she thought of Grant Hollis again. The way he’d looked under those Christmas lights. The easy strength of him. The heat that had flooded her even from a distance.
She pressed her lips together, trying not to smile at herself. “Don’t be stupid,” she whispered into the dark.
But her cheeks were warm anyway.
She closed her eyes, the wish still humming in her chest, and drifted.
And somewhere between waking and sleep, she dreamed—of a man with a voice like gravel and honey, standing in a field of fireflies, reaching out a hand that she wasn’t quite brave enough to take.
£4.99 Pre Order
Add to Wishlist
Read a Sample
Send as a Gift
Available in:
epub, pdf 
Facebook
Twitter
Newsletter