Briggs: Remember when we parted ways in Germany? It was the day I broke your heart. What you didn't know was that I was breaking mine too. I thought they'd be enough - my husband and my son. That I'd get home and everything would go back to the way it was...before the war. Before the ambush. Before you. But, no matter how hard I try, I can't erase the trauma we shared. I can't seem to forget the way my heart beat in time with yours. I thought the nightmare was over when they pulled us from that hole in the ground, but nothing could have prepared me for the war I'd face at home.

When your eyes land on a complete stranger on the train, and the world around you stops. When the stranger says hello, and your heart stops, too. When the universe answers your prayers and he's there, next day, on the train. A man so powerful—brooding with darkness and secrets. I knew there was going to be more. I wanted more. When the stranger is reading one of your favorite novels, and you're reading one of his. When you think the universe can't be any kinder, but it truly delivers the jackpot of all jackpots and two opposite worlds collide, as though it was meant to be.

Jude "Lucky" Lucketti wasn't just a sexy, brooding construction worker. He was my own personal hero, showing up in all the right places at the right times. Like when my car broke down and I needed a ride home, and when I face-planted on the sidewalk right in front of him and had to be taken to the emergency room. We became friends, and it didn't matter that he was 16 years older than me. We had a lot in common - like our love of old rock music and vintage fast cars and our aversion to relationships.

She's back. We were kids the last time I saw her, but my innocent crush from childhood is full-grown now. And it's not so innocent anymore. She's a breath of fresh air from the series of one-night stands since being drafted into the NHL. I've only got one shot with her, and I'm not taking it for granted. I may give her the passion she's been craving, but she's the intimacy I've waited for my whole life.

When Shay Zucconi’s step-grandmother died, she left Shay a tulip farm—under two conditions. First, Shay has to move home to the small town of Friendship, Rhode Island. Second—and most problematic since her fiancé just called off the wedding—Shay must be married within one year.