When your childhood best friend reappears suddenly in your life, it can mean a second chance -- a second chance for him to be oblivious to you being in love with him.<br><br>River Lynch’s best friend Lake inherited a horse rescue and moved their little found family to Illinois. While the rescue is amazing and River loves everything about it, finding a job as a nurse is tricky, especially when you don’t want to hide your queerness from anyone and most of the local clinics have more crosses on the walls than average churches.<br><br>Seeing Lake and his new beau Theo fall in love is great, but it also makes River feel like maybe that sort of thing just isn’t in the books for him. River has been in love once when he was a teenager, and he never quite shook that love, even when they were separated by circumstance.<br><br>Ben Harries is a professional editor and used to work for Lake’s author aunt Ruth. Now that Ruth is gone, Ben is employed to help Lake finish Ruth’s last manuscript. Finding his best and maybe only friend River at Twin Star Rescue shocks Ben to the core, especially when River’s reaction is less than stellar.<br><br>At first, Ben doesn’t understand, but then he figures that River might be interested in him romantically. That might be a bit of a problem, because Ben has never really felt attraction to anyone and doesn’t really see what the fuss is about. The last thing either of them wants is to hurt the other.<br><br>While River is coming to terms with the fact that some secrets of the past might have to come to light, Ben tries to sort out his own feelings. He knows he’s asexual, but how does that fit with the fact that for the first time ever, he suddenly has a crush?

Rey left home at seventeen after an event that shook him to the core. He didn’t see a way to feel safe anymore, so he panicked and ran to the streets. He got lucky when two friends, Lake and River, found him and took him in, becoming big brothers and a new family when he had nobody.<br><br>Moving with them from New York City to Joliet, Illinois was a big change, but when Lake inherited an animal rescue, there was no way he and River would leave Rey behind. Suffering from agoraphobia that makes him unable to go outside makes life difficult for Rey, but he has an understanding found family and things to occupy his time.<br><br>Everything looks great, and then Cook comes home.<br><br>For Jack Cook, life hasn’t been exactly kind, but he deals with the physical and emotional baggage from his childhood and his days in the Army just fine. He’s made a great career as a private chef for wealthy clients, and he has a home base at the Twin Star Rescue while he’s in between jobs.<br><br>At thirty-six, he enjoys his life and doesn’t get surprised by much, but then he meets Rey.<br><br>There’s an instant connection, a camaraderie between two people who enjoy cooking and taking care of their loved ones. Gradually, that connection grows into something deeper, something different.<br><br>Both Rey and Jack know that they don’t want anything to happen between them before Rey turns eighteen. That feels wrong, and not just on the legal side.<br><br>But dealing with the emotions swirling between them becomes too much, and distance is the only way Jack can deal with it all. While he runs to his blood family to figure out how to move through his past and heal enough for a future, Rey stays at the rescue and soldiers on.<br><br>Rey can be patient when need be, but when he turns eighteen and Jack isn’t back yet, he decides to tempt fate to move things along.<br><br>Invoking his past might not be the best idea, but Jack will come home to keep him safe, right?

Everyone dreams of a distant relative leaving them a fortune in their will, right?<br><br>At twenty-five, Lake White lives in New York City with his best friend and their roommate. He works at a bookstore, feeling content, but never quite happy. He’s vowed he’ll never return to Illinois where his parents disowned him for wanting to live his life authentically.<br><br>Then, one visit from a lawyer changes everything. Not only does it reveal that one of Lake’s favorite authors was actually his late aunt Ruth, but that she’d left him Twin Star Rescue, her life’s work. There are caveats, because of course there are. Lake can’t just decide whether to keep or sell the rescue right away. The book rights, those are squarely his, but there’s also the question of her last manuscript that’s unfinished. Could Lake finish writing it?<br><br>Twin Star Rescue’s foreman, Theo Fenton, isn’t the easiest guy to understand or get along with. Having just lost his best friend and boss Ruth, Theo is trying to protect everything Ruth represented to him and the others in their circle. Some city kid with his two friends coming to mess everything up doesn’t seem like a good idea.<br><br>At couple of years short of forty, Theo has cultivated his life into what he wants it to be. Sure, he has trouble making romantic connections with people, but he has great friends, a job he loves, and the best dog he could ask for. What else does a guy need?<br><br>Together, Lake and Theo navigate the various tasks of the rescue, the animals that need their help, all their friends and found family, and their mutual animosity turning into something more positive. The universe never stops giving them more surprises along the way, because where would the fun be in that?

Joey Laine hasn’t had it easy. At twenty-three, he’s the sole caretaker of his beloved grandma, and the mystery of his father’s disappearance still haunts them both after almost six years. Joey has gotten used to his solitude, and the way he sees colors fading from the world around him. Nothing has shaken his routines in years.<br><br>When he gets a call from Owen Henderson who says that he and his brother run a YouTube channel called Diving4Truth, everything changes. Owen wants to search the river that serpentines around Joey's town, because sometimes missing people end up closer than anyone thinks.<br><br>Letting Owen and his family come to film their search is one thing. Realizing the instant, insane chemistry between himself and Owen is a whole other ballgame. For the first time in his life, Joey feels that spark he’s only heard about before.<br><br>But things just aren’t that simple for someone like Joey. What if feeling the sort of acceptance Owen has shown so far is too much to bear after he’s left for the next dive? And what if they do find Joey’s dad? What if they don’t?

Sequel to <i>Arran</i><br><br>Kyler grew up in a bad place and then in foster care, which was almost worse. All his anger, which should’ve been aimed at his parents, ended up being concentrated on Arran instead. Trauma responses aren’t always the smartest, and Kyler went the worst way possible trying to get to the man he believed had ruined his life.<br><br>While checking up on his latest attempt at getting Arran’s attention, he gets bowled over by Stefan, the Alpha’s brother. In an instant, there’s a connection even Kyler, a human, can’t deny. Kyler was taught to hate wolves and all they represent. Now, he’s the mate of one?<br><br>Stefan, an alpha wolf too young to take on the pack’s Alpha power when his mother passed away, has struggled since his teens. He’s been the best beta to his brother he’d been able to with his broken body. A broken body that has just begun to heal against all odds. When his shift bursts out of him in the face of danger, he doesn’t know it yet: he’s found his mate.<br><br>Now there’s a not-so-little decision Stefan and Kyler need to make: Do they want to take the burden of being an Alpha off Marek’s shoulders and be the new Alpha pair of their pack? But their mate bond hasn’t been completed. Are they ready to take their relationship to a physical level?

Sequel to <i>Wolfy</i><br><br>Trauma and heartache have followed Arran his whole life. Raised by wolf hunters, he was lucky to escape Washington State and that life at his first chance. Becoming a liaison between wolf packs and hunters across the United States was Arran's way of healing his soul from what he'd seen his family do.<br><br>A decade ago, he met Marek, the alpha son of a small pack in Montana. The pair quickly realized they were mates, fell in love, and had plans for a future where Arran being a liaison would make a real difference. But then, everything changed when Marek had to step up as the Alpha.<br><br>Since that day, Arran has been running from his past, solving problems for other people while his mating bite throbs in time with his broken heart. He's had lovers, but everyone who sees the scar on his wrist knows that he belongs to another.<br><br>Fresh off one job, Arran receives a late-night call from Marek's wife -- his replacement -- begging for help, and there's nothing he can do but head back to the Alpha he never wanted to face again. Not after he learns that the events from New Mexico are connected to what's happening to Marek's pack. Someone is threatening two packs he's been involved with, and that can't be ignored.<br><br>Showing up on Marek's doorstep is its own complication with plenty of surprises in store for both men. Not only does Arran have secrets from his hunter past, but Marek has been bearing his own all these years. Old hurts and new revelations mix in a cocktail of hurt and comfort as the pack figures out how to move forward and be happy again.

How did a night of drinking away loneliness end with a werewolf waking up in a crappy dog pound, stuck inside his wolf form? As a beta wolf and an enforcer of his pack, Mateo is needed at home. He's never heard of other werewolves being unable to shift back, and he's not about to attack the pound staff to get out, because it's just not right to hurt humans who don't know what you are. With the clock ticking down until he's scheduled to be put down, Mateo's only way out is shifting back or being adopted. Given how huge and scruffy his wolf form is, no one wants him ... until Lily and her father, Wes, arrive. Seeing them as his only option, Mateo decides he can swallow his pride and play dog for them for the time being, just until he can safely run back to his pack. Wes has been a single father since only weeks before Lily was born. Her other father left them and Wes hasn’t had much luck with dating since. At four, Lily is smart and strong-willed, and finally has the dog of her dreams. Wolfy is a friend, a babysitter, and a protector, and Wes is pretty sure the dog understands speech, too. A few weeks after bringing Wolfy home, everything in Wes' lonely but peaceful life changes. He lets their beloved dog out into the yard, only to find a gorgeous -- and naked -- man in his place. Thrown into a world where werewolves and magic users aren't just fairytales in Lily's storybooks, Wes must face even more revelations after meeting Mateo's pack. With so much changed between them, both men have to be true to themselves and their responsibilities while Wes figures out what he can and cannot deal with, and Mateo decides where his home really is.