The Sheriff He Trusted

Ava Pruitt has kept Slocomb County's shelter running on duct tape and stubbornness, and she has kept one other thing even longer: the secret that sent Deacon Vance to prison for two years. He doesn't know. He thinks she's the only person in town who ever believed in him. Now he's back, fixing her roof in the rain, calling her at midnight from the cab of a truck, looking at her like she's the way out of a life he never chose. Ava knows the truth has a clock on it. She just doesn't know that when it lands, Deacon will take the fall for a fire he didn't set to keep the sheriff's eyes off her. Some men you can't keep. Some you have to earn back in front of the whole town.