When the past comes knocking at the chapel doors, will love be strong enough to answer?

Ellie Hartwood has spent years rebuilding her life in the quiet riverside town of Maplewood, finding solace in the ivy-covered walls of the old chapel on Riverside Drive. As the town's beloved community coordinator, she has carefully kept her heart under lock and key - until the one man she never expected to see again walks back into her world.

Jack Calloway left Maplewood a decade ago with nothing but broken promises and a shattered dream. Now a successful architect commissioned to restore the historic chapel, he returns hoping to make peace with his past. But peace is the last thing he finds when he comes face to face with Ellie.

As Jack and Ellie work side by side to save the chapel from demolition, old wounds begin to heal and buried feelings refuse to stay hidden. But secrets have a way of surfacing - and the truth about why Jack really left may destroy everything they are slowly rebuilding.

Sample Reading Extract:

Ellie pressed her hand against the cool stone wall of the chapel and closed her eyes. She could still hear the echo of the old organ, the way it used to fill the arched ceiling on Sunday mornings, wrapping around every pew like a warm embrace. She hadn't stepped inside in years. Not since the funeral. Not since him.

"I didn't think you'd still be here."

His voice. She would have recognized it anywhere - low and unhurried, carrying just enough gravel to make her chest tighten.

She turned slowly, and there he was. Jack Calloway. Older, yes. The easy grin was tempered now by something more measured, more careful. But those eyes - the same dark hazel that had once made her believe the whole world could be rearranged just for the two of them - hadn't changed at all.

"I could say the same about you," she said, surprised by how steady her voice came out.

He stepped through the chapel's arched doorway, the afternoon light catching the dust motes floating between them. He looked around at the crumbling plasterwork, the tilting pews, the stained-glass window with the crack running through the angel's wing.

"It's worse than the photos," he said quietly.

"Most things are," Ellie replied, "when you've been away long enough."

A clean and wholesome small-town romance about second chances, community, and the courage it takes to let someone back in. Perfect for fans of heartfelt contemporary romance.