Staying the Distance

After a year of mourning, Montana rancher Miles feels stagnated. When Karen, an outdoor adventures leader, turns up at Miles’s ranch in the bone-chilling winter with a proposition for her to lead an all-woman group into the Montana wilderness, Miles snaps it up like a rare steak. Her body comes awake at the sight of Stormy, the horse wrangler sent by the stock supplier to assist her, but Rachel, one of the guests, reaches into her heart with the warmth of a freshly baked pie. The pack trip leads them deep into an isolated area, where cell phones are useless, and the trip morphs into an excursion with a deadly obstacle. The eight guests, the two outfitters, the trip organizer, and Miles must bring their singular wits to bear to surmount an impasse of not granite but men.

Montana rancher Becky Miles (who decidedly drops the Becky part) is drawn into the snake pit of internalized homophobia when she travels to Vermont to find out if her gal, Jane Scott, still loves her. Jane's life is enmeshed by old guilt and compassion for Georgia, whose horse training business is tarnished by a tragic death in her barn. Miles has little patience for Georgia, a closeted lesbian who is desperate to pass among the upper crust of the horse show world. Neither Jane nor Miles has any idea, at first, just how desperate Georgia is to pass in the straight world.

Journalist Jane Scott finds herself drawn into a world of violence. Horses are being murdered for their insurance value and stolen to sell with new identities. Jane uses her journalist skills in an attempt to expose the growing horror taking place in the seemingly benign horse show circles of the wealthy. When she gets too close to the truth, her own horses disappear from her farm. Is it a warning that she's getting too close to the truth?

Jane unexpectedly meets Miles, a woman who finds her at the feet of a beautiful black Trakehner mare, which Jane calls Night. Jane falls for Miles in more ways than one. But the men Jane is trying to stop are determined she will not expose their lucrative horse theft ring. Can she expose them before they come after her?

As a doctor, Mick McVey knows what a mental health crisis looks like. Her own still takes her by surprise. When she inherits a house from the grandfather she’s never met, she puts herself on sabbatical and travels to the small hometown of the mother who abandoned her. It’s a temporary solution.

Mick might not be grieving her grandfather, but to her new neighbor Katy, his death is one blow too many. Mick’s arrival feels like Katy’s chance to forget her ex and her struggling cinema and reinvent herself. She’ll finally get her hot rebound and make this year her year.

When the COVID-19 lockdown traps both women in situations they’d convinced themselves were temporary, they’re forced to face what they really want from their lives, and who they want to share them with.

To the community, Aradia Burke is the premier dog trainer and breeder of Anatolian shepherds in the region. Whether it is training the family pet or a top-tier working K9, Aradia is the go-to person. The truth is buried beneath centuries of closely held secrets. Aradia’s birthright and duty is to train the Guardians, those special dogs that keep the world safe from demons. When pre-cognitive Mercy Burroughs has a vision and Aradia arrives on her doorstep, her careful life unravels. Demons are close to breaching one of the portals and will threaten the Western Washington Guardian team and K9, Clemons. It’s up to Aradia, Mercy, and the K9s to stop them before darkness falls over the world.

Nic Gallagher has it all: a great job, supportive family and friends, and a sweet dog. Everything changes after an unexpected reorganization at work makes Lee Stone her supervisor.

Lee is beautiful, outstanding at her job, and has quickly catapulted to head of sales. According to the rumor mill, she’s also a bit of an ice queen who’s left a line of broken men in her rise to the top.

Nic and Lee got on well in new hire training and haven’t been able to stand each other since. Nic seethes silently as Lee gets promoted while she’s stuck at manager. That is, until she’s downsized in a strategic layoff, and her simmering anger finally burns openly.

They have good reasons for keeping their distance. So why does their growing attraction seem more like a love-hate relationship?