Forbidden Fruit

Rich and superficial, Apple Wooten knows best that she's wasted her life, in and out of rehab, betraying those she considers friends, and never forming attachments with anyone but her unhealthily cloistered family. When her brother shocks all of them by announcing he's leaving the Wooten Law Firm in New York City and moving to Amethyst, Wisconsin, a mere blip on the map, to marry a small town girl, Apple is prodded by her mother to rush in and talk sense into him. Though it's the last thing she wants to do considering she's just been released from another rehabilitation she doesn't expect to stick and Amethyst is the hometown of a friend she all but destroyed with her selfishness, she nevertheless sees no way to avoid her mother's bidding. She'd never been able to refuse her parents anything--and not simply because they control the purse strings.

The one person in Amethyst who will give her the time of day is Bailey "Bay" Johnson, who also went into the family business. The Johnsons own a slew of resort cabins on Lake Amethyst and, during the tourist season, they do brisk, bustling business. Apple had met Bailey years ago, the first time she ever came to Amethyst, when she'd ordered him around and all but made him her servant. Bailey didn't seem bothered by her cruel teasing then, just as he doesn't seem to be affected by her humbled, fumbling attempts at kindness now.

As the youngest of nine siblings in a close-knit family, Bailey has learned that acceptance is far easier than fighting. Unfortunately, a bad experience with love when he was young also taught him that folding is preferable to holding because reaching for forbidden fruit like the treacherous, beautiful disaster, and--recently--child-like and fragile Apple Wooten could be the worst mistake he's ever made.