New Year, New Love?

After thirty-eight years with the National Park Service, I've returned to Yellowstone National Park, the primary place that holds my heart. I'm here to celebrate my retirement, reconnect with dear friends, and welcome the New Year surrounded by snow-covered peaks, steaming geysers, and memories from a lifetime of service.

What I never expected was to see him again.

Michael Bryant - the man I met when I was nineteen and never forgot. He's in Yellowstone, too, for a celebration of his own. Decades have passed since our paths last crossed, yet the spark that began when we were young roars to life like a fire in the hotel lobby's hearth.

I'm widowed. He's divorced. Our individual lives have been shaped by joy and loss. As winter settles over the park and Michael and I reconnect, the promise of a new year glimmers, and I can't help but wonder ...

Is this our second chance? Or will the past and the miles that have separated us again keep us apart?

Gayle M. Irwin is an award-winning author and freelance writer. She is a contributor to eight Chicken Soup for the Soul books and the author of inspirational pet books for children and adults, including the Pet Rescue Romance - Yellowstone Country series, a collection of eight sweet, contemporary romance stories set near Yellowstone National Park. Her other pet rescue romance stories are also set in the Rocky Mountain West, including her National Park Romance series. She weaves life lessons within the pages of her works, including courage, kindness, perseverance, friendship nature appreciation, and the importance of pet rescue and adoption. Gayle volunteers for rescue organizations and donates a percentage of book sales to such groups. Her own pets are rescues that she and her husband adopted. Learn more about Gayle and her writing at www.gaylemirwin.net