Clark Griswold was onto something...at least with his annual holiday meltdown. And since the last three weeks of my life have been riddled with humbug—another breakup, a broken toe, an office promotion I deserved and didn’t get—I’m not at all in the mood to celebrate nor have the happ, happ, happiest Christmas EVER.

It never fails that I always get into awkward situations, like accusing the deputy at my front door of being a stripper and then asking if he’s going to arrest me when he shows up at school the next day…to pick up his nephew. Nate seems unamused by my antics, but when we start to work together, we’re forced to spend time with one another.

My dad and I have been estranged for years, but as his only living relative, it's no surprise I inherit his massive cattle ranch when he dies. But the stipulation in his will that requires me to live on the ranch and actively manage it for a year before I can access my inheritance money. I haven't stepped foot in Hartsville, Texas, population one thousand, since my parents split when I was six. Now a city girl through and through, I never imagined having to move back to cowboy country. But I need the money to invest in my company, and a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

Triple Falls wasn’t at all what it seemed, nor were the men that swept me under their wing. But in order to keep them, I had to be in on their secrets.⁣ Secrets that cost us everything to keep.⁣ That’s the novelty of fiction versus reality. You can’t re-live your own love story, because by the time you’ve realized you’re living it, it’s over. At least that was the case for me and the men I trusted my foolish heart to.⁣ Looking back, I’m convinced I willed my story into existence, due to my illness, and all were punished.

Shay Eastwood is the object of the world's fantasies. She occupies every magazine cover and television screen. And I have one job: Protect her with my life. It doesn't matter that she occupies my every thought. There are too many reasons why she can't be mine: I'm too old for her, I'm all she has left. My only job is to keep her safe.