When successful marketing executive Hannah returns to Thunder Creek to settle her grandmother's estate, she doesn't expect to be pulled over by six feet of commanding authority in a sheriff's uniform.

Marcus Stone is everything she remembers and more—confident, protective, and absolutely certain about what he wants. He's also 36 to her 28, with steel-gray eyes and a voice that makes her pulse race every time he calls her sweetheart.

"You're not going anywhere until you're ready," he declares when her complicated past threatens to send her running back to Seattle. "And when you are ready, it'll be your choice, not theirs."

Hannah came home to Thunder Creek to tie up loose ends and return to her carefully planned city life. She never expected to find her future with the boy who broke her heart in high school—now a man who sees her success as something to celebrate and treats her dreams like they're worth fighting for.

But when her career-defining promotion demands she choose between love and ambition, will their second chance survive? Or will she lose the only man who's ever made her feel like she's exactly where she belongs?

A standalone mountain man romance with second chance love, age gap, protective alpha energy, and guaranteed HEA. No cheating, no cliffhangers, just pure satisfaction.