Second Bloom

At forty-three, Joanna has built a quiet life for herself in the wake of loss. A widowed mother, she spends her days tending to her home, pouring her love into her son, Joshua, and keeping her heart safely guarded. Love, she tells herself, is a chapter long closed.

Then Adam arrives.

A decade younger, ruggedly handsome, and with a quiet strength that unsettles her carefully constructed world, Adam is just the man who mows her lawn. Or so she tells herself-until their stolen conversations by the garden gate become the highlight of her week. Until his easy laughter lingers in her mind long after he's gone. Until she finds herself watching for him, waiting for him, wondering what if?

But love at her age-after everything-is complicated. The weight of the past, the whispers of the town, and her own fears threaten to keep her rooted in place. And yet, when Adam looks at her, she feels something she thought was lost forever: the reckless, breathless hope of a new beginning.

As summer fades and the grass grows slower, Joanna must decide-will she let the seasons change without him, or take a chance on love once more?