She came to the desert to disappear.
He refused to let her fade away.

After a devastating loss, transplant surgeon Harlow James leaves New York behind. Burned out, grieving, and alone, she heads west hoping to find peace—or maybe an ending. Instead, she stumbles into the Pearl, a sustainable desert home outside Taos, New Mexico, and the unexpected company of its infuriatingly magnetic owner.

Dax Drexel is everything Harlow swore she didn't want. A master carpenter with sawdust on his hands and laughter in his eyes, he's gorgeous, reckless, and thirteen years too young. But against the vast New Mexico sky, lines begin to blur. Their stolen nights feel dangerously close to healing.

Harlow came looking for answers. What she found is a man who makes her question everything she thought she knew about love, success, and second chances.

But in a world quick to judge a woman's choices, can she risk her heart on someone who breaks all her rules? Or will walking away be her biggest mistake yet?

A moving, age-gap romance about grief, renewal, and the courage it takes to love again.