Nine Alone: The Girl Who Came Home (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9789765304479)

She spent seven years running from the one man she could never forget. He spent seven years waiting for the only woman who ever truly saw him. Now she's back - and this time, he's not letting her go.

Wren Calloway left her small town with a suitcase full of secrets and a heart heavy with unspoken longing. For years, she watched Cole Masterson from the shadows - the town's most notorious bad boy, a rancher with a reputation as wild as the land he worked. She saw him with other women. She saw the way they looked at him. But she never had the courage to let him see her.

Until the day she ran.

Seven years later, Wren returns home, hoping to build a quiet life above a bakery and leave her painful past behind. She's older now. Wiser. She's traveled the world and worked in dozens of kitchens, but she's never been able to outrun the memory of those piercing blue eyes that once looked right through her.

Cole Masterson has been half-living for seven years. He's buried himself in work, numbed himself with meaningless encounters, and convinced himself he didn't care. But the moment he sees Wren standing behind that food truck, her curves filling out a simple dress, her dark eyes wide with nervous anticipation - something inside him ignites.

He claims her right there. In front of every ranch hand. In front of the entire town.

She's his.

And he's done waiting.

Wren doesn't know what to make of this possessive, relentless version of Cole. He's nothing like the distant, untouchable man she remembers. He touches her like she's precious. He looks at her like she's the only woman in the world. He whispers promises that make her heart race and her body ache with a need she's never felt before.

But Cole has enemies. Women who once shared his bed now want to destroy the woman who stole his heart. And when the town gossip turns deadly, Wren finds herself caught in a web of lies, jealousy, and danger that threatens to tear them apart.

Cole has never backed down from a fight. And he'll burn this town to the ground before he lets anyone hurt what belongs to him.

As the flames of scandal rise and buried secrets come to light, Wren must decide: Is she brave enough to trust the man who broke her heart without ever knowing it? And can Cole prove that the only woman he's ever truly loved is the one standing right in front of him?