The Cowboy Next Door

by Hannah Brooks

Heat 1 / 5Novella · 12 chapters35,022 words2h 32m read~3h 53m listenFree with a free account

In the small Georgia town of Peach & Pine, everyone knows the story of the orchard fire — who signed what, who ran, and who was left holding the blame. Greta Keane has spent a decade making herself small enough not to hurt anyone else. She bakes pies, avoids promises, and keeps her name off anything that might anchor another soul to a place she fears she cursed.

Then a summer storm, a jammed back door, and a frantic town council conspire to lock her inside the Main Street bakery with the one man she never stopped loving. Thaddeus Frost arrives at 3:06 a.m. hauling crates of storm-battered peaches, a return ticket to Texas already in his pocket, and ten years of questions she has never answered.

They have until dawn to bake a heritage peach pie that will save the county fair contract. They have one night to fill out every form, sign every line, and pretend that standing this close to each other means nothing. And buried somewhere between the flour dust and the oven heat is the secret Greta told to protect him — the lie that shaped the story Peach & Pine has told about both of them ever since.

Small TownFound FamilySlow Burn