TIMBER & BONE: A love story for the unsettled

Clara works with her hands. She doesn't scare easily.Hired to restore the water-logged Blackwood Lakehouse, she expects to deal with dry rot, mold, and crumbling foundations. She doesn't expect the heavy, cold draft that wraps around her waist when she's alone in the dark, or the smell of old tobacco and copper that clings to the empty hallways.Julian Blackwood died in 1927 with a bullet in his chest and a betrayal on his lips. Bound to the property lines, he has spent ninety years fading into the dark, starving for touch.Until Clara.Every timber Clara repairs makes Julian's phantom body more solid, more present, and dangerously warm. But the greedy developer wants the building demolished by Monday. If the timber and bone of the lodge are torn down, Julian's anchor is gone, and he will be erased forever.To save the ghost in her bed, Clara must work through the night to secure the structure-and face the physical, raw reality of a dead man who refuses to let her go.Heat Rating: (Open Door / High Steam / Gritty Intimacy)

Pages: 101, Paperback, Independently published