Against Doctor's Orders

A brief detour to a ranch in the middle of nowhere doesn’t lead to forever, does it?

Olivia Martinez, forced to leave her high-power Manhattan job with no prospects, is at a crossroad. Not only is she a city girl down to the tips of her Jimmy Choos, she wants to stay close to her parents, who depend on her more than they’d like to. Generally not a risk taker, Olivia steps out of her comfort zone when her best friend, Elizabeth Sutton, asks her to temporarily lend a hand at the Red Sky Ranch. After all, what can a few months change, and New York City is just a plane ride—or three—away, right?

Haunted by an hour that changed her life, Riley Mitchell escapes the memories and the guilt by riding motorcycles way too fast, skydiving, and running into burning buildings. She is good-looking, charming, and never wants for female company, as long as no commitment is expected. When Olivia returns to the Red Sky Ranch, Riley’s carefully crafted safe world goes up in flames.

Can they take a risk and cross the fire line to find love?

Kelsey Brunel knows exactly what the future holds: she’ll one day inherit the Arizona dude ranch that has been in her family for three generations. She tells herself that the business and her good friends are all she’ll ever want or need. Long-term relationships aren’t in the picture, which after witnessing the devastation of her parents’ failed marriage, is just fine with her.

Elizabeth Sutton has grown up proving to her family that she’s as capable and accomplished as they demand her to be, even if that means working for the family business. Her latest assignment, to turn a backwater ranch in Arizona into another link in their international chain of wellness centers, feels like a demotion and she can’t wait to get it done and escape back to civilization.

Two women from different worlds have nothing in common and every reason to wish they’d never met—except for the attraction neither can deny.

Tally Dewilde forges her own path when she chooses to go into veterinary medicine and ignores her mother’s desire that she establish a boutique clinic for the pets of the wealthy in Manhattan. When she arrives in upstate rural New York to join Sydney Valentine’s animal  hospital, the break with her old life seems complete on every level. Until an unwelcome reminder of the painful past arrives at her door in the form of Roman Ashcroft. 

Rome Ashcroft was forced to give up her dreams when accused of a crime that cost her everything. She intends to start a new life as a PA at the Rivers community hospital, until a simple act of kindness throws all her plans into question. Her past, it seems, is not so easily forgotten when fate brings her and Tally Dewilde together—along with an attraction neither welcomes.

Dr. Lily Davenport is the poster child for burnout—physically and emotionally. All she wants is a few months of nondemanding work at a summer camp, of all places, so she can figure out what to do with the rest of her life. The last thing she expects is to run into a woman who awakens a passion she hadn’t even realized had died along with all those she’d failed to save.

Forest ranger Chase Fielder is not in the market for a relationship. Counting on people never leaving is for fools. A fling with Lily promises to be exactly what Chase is looking for—short-term, hot as a forest fire, and one Chase can extinguish whenever she wants. Now all she has to do is convince Lily they’re a perfect match.

After all, it’s only one summer.

Dr. Bennett Anderson accepts a short-term contract at a rural medical center to fill the gap year before taking the high-profile job she’d put on hold while chasing a dream that had slipped away. In a deep-rooted community where everyone seems to know everyone else, Ben is an oddity—a stranger just passing through with no plans to build any ties.

Courtney Valentine is looking for a woman exactly like Ben—smart, sexy, and not in the market for anything serious. All she has to do is convince Ben that sex-without-strings is the perfect pathway to pleasure. What could be better?