Mark Barnes is certain no woman can really love a man blinded by a land mine during peacekeeping operations in Bosnia. What looks like love must be pity, he concludes. That's certainly the message he got from his ex-fiancee when he returned from his military service and became a government lawyer. So, he focusses on his job and works out. When he accidentally sits on a beautiful ex-jock blonde, Mark initially backs off, but he is intrigued by this woman who seems to accept him as simply a ...

When her aunt dies, Mindy Russell heads to the ranch in west Texas that was her aunt's final home. Aunt Lucy had been a character--once married to a Texas millionaire, she had tweeked social conventions, enjoyed life to the fullest, and, according to family legend, kept a gigolo. Mindy hopes that there's enough in the inheritance to pay her way through teaching school. When she arrives, though, she finds that the ranch manager has his own plans for the ranch, and they don't include Mindy t...

Billionaire businessman Tyler Atwood knows how to solve problems--when his father left his family with nothing but debts, Tyler had to develop his business and problem-solving skills. Now he's parlayed those skills into a successful steel business, but Harvey, a golden retriever mix, is beyond his capabilities. The dog is destructive and has gone through five different trainers. Desperate, when Tyler hears about pet psychologist, Courtney Zane, he resolves to do whatever it takes to persua...

For her thirtieth birthday, Nicole d'Angre is expecting a nice present from her dominant husband--maybe a night on the town or a bit more passion and less pain than usual. Instead, he brings in an co-ed to replace her, tells her she's too old (at 30) for a male like him, and dumps her. Nicole dropped out of college to serve her master and doesn't have a clue how to create a life of her own--the only path she sees is to scheme her way back into her husband's good graces. First, though, she ...

Rick Engle had seen Jennifer Hollman, she'd been the rich girl dumping him for someone from her own background. He'd thought he had put her behind her but when he saw her working in that low-rent department store, the attraction still sizzled. When he gets her fired from her job and kicked out of her apartment, he has to take her in. Not that he minds too much.Jennifer still hurts from the way Rick had left her years before. She knows he'll laugh when he discovers her father lost h...

Troy Garrett is back from the wars. When his ex-wife died, leaving Troy with their 4-year-old daughter, Annie, ex-mercenary Troy hangs up his guns and heads to California to become a full time daddy. He's bought the perfect house on the cliffs of Malibu, and hopes that somehow he can get though Annie's anger and become the part of his daughter's life he's always wanted to be. He has given up on women for the duration--raising a girl is complicated enough, but then again, he doesn't expect ...

Everyone tells him he's a hero, but Russell Lyons can't remember anything. Since he lost his memory to a roadside bomb in Iraq, Russell has struggled with amnesia. Now that he's returned to Shermann, Missouri, Russell intends to retrieve his memory, to get back everything he once had. But when he falls for the woman he hires to help him find his past, he wonders if there's a better future.

How Does Foster Care Work? is an international collection of empirical studies on the outcomes of children in foster care. Drawing on research and perspectives from leading international figures in children's services across the developed world, the book provides an evidence base for programme planning, policy and practice.This volume establishes a platform for comparison of international systems, trends and outcomes in foster care today. Each contributor provides a commentary on o...

When Trish Evers inherits her grandmother’s B&B on a beach in North Carolina, she packs up her 6-year-old daughter Isabella, who has Down syndrome, and moves there seeking a fresh start. Though she must sell the house, she decides to bring her daughter to the beach for one last summer vacation in her childhood town. Bella likes to explore the beach and has a tendency to wander off. On one such occasion, Trish finds her in the company of an intriguing stranger.Blind as a result of c...

Six months ago, being snowed in at Christmas with the amazing woman he met on R & R at Fort Riley would have been a dream come true, yet now, as a blizzard swirls outside Beth Tate's house, Captain Chris Walker knows he shouldn't be there. Blinded in combat and emotionally scarred, he never wanted Beth to know the man he's become—but stranded by the storm, he had no one else to call.Hurt and bewildered when Chris abruptly ended his faithful contact from Afghanistan, Beth tried to pu...

With her strict no-dating-within-the-department rule, Firefighter Lina Standish has a nickname in the Salem Hills Fire Department: Lina 'Standoffish'. And she likes it that way. Things on the job could get too complicated too fast when co-workers dated. So she embraced her nickname and kept everyone at arms' length.But Firefighter Kevin Daly has had his eye on Standoffish ever since a locker room incident nearly a year earlier, and now he plans to break all her rules. With the help...

Lin is a mother on the run from a painful and deadly past. She’ll do anything to protect her children. But a damaged marine with PTSD and a bad case of superstition threatens their safety when he grows close enough to uncover her secrets.US Marine Pete “Rabbit” Kincaid only wants to go back on deployment, but after his most recent injury, he might not make it back into the fight. When he meets Lin Doyle, a young mother of two, he quickly realizes the fight has come to him.