Crossing Over Crazy

By Diana L. Rowe
Copyright 2000 by Diana Rowe Martinez
 100,000 WORD
- 2002 Heart of Rockies Honorable Mention for Crossing Over Crazy, a Single Title Romantic Suspense

Chapter 1 Excerpt

Sydney Anderson folded her arms tightly around her chest.  She paused in the hospital corridor while three security guards surrounded her mother, Maude, a sixty-year-old with Nesbitt orange soda hair.  As usual, Maude was dressed colorfully--today in an orange chiffon blouse that perfectly matched her hair color, a black mini skirt, and white Go-Go boots.  Her Bloodhound, drool poised and ready, stretched the limits of the tenuous hold on his leash to sniff the only female officer’s crotch.

“I don’t think she’s your type, Luther.”  Sydney’s mother laughed, a sour whiskey gravelly sound, and reeled the dog in.

Some daughters might intercede on their mother’s behalf, or perhaps even the officer’s.  Sydney preferred allowing the dust to settle.  She was accustomed to such scenes from a woman who routinely chained herself to the Weld County Courthouse in protest of unfair regulations in pet waste disposal.    

“Mrs. Anderson, pets are not allowed in the hospital unless this animal is a guide dog.”  The overweight, balding security guard encircled his arms around a stomach that spilled over his waistband.  

It took a moment, but then Syd definitely recognized the guard’s why-didn’t-I-leave-Crossing-Colorado-sooner look that he wore like a medal of honor.  

Oh yes, I remember him now, George something or other, Sydney thought.  His partner, a shorter wider version, faced Syd revealing a nametag that read: “John.”  The third security guard, a woman, stood a few steps away, probably serving as back-up in case the old woman, my mother, went ballistic. Mom’s reputation obviously had preceded her.

Maude straightened her shoulders and pressed her protuberant spandex-clad stomach into the taller security guard’s, as if they were matching beer bellies instead of wits. “Georgie Smith, this here is more than a guide dog.  Lord God, if I didn’t have Luther as my protector, there’s no telling what harm might befall a defenseless senior citizen such as myself.”  

Yeah right, more like drama queen senior citizen.

Sighing, Sydney stepped forward.  All she had to do was walk down the corridor toward her mother, stop the discussion and convince Maude to leave the dog outside.  Easy enough, if Maude were anyone else’s mother.  But Maude was her mother, and she’d ceased being reasonable when her husband had left her fifteen-odd years ago.  

Sydney should remind her that they were here to pick up Earl, her brother, and today was not about Maude and her ridiculous convictions. Today was about her brother nearly getting beaten to death in another one of his typical fiascos of getting in over his head. He’d said it was nothing to worry about it; he’d simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.  

Syd knew her brother better than that.  His beatings were usually quite well deserved, from a criminal’s point of view.

“Mother...” She took a step forward.

As usual, Maude ignored her and moved closer to the security guard.  The shift caused her slick boot to slide across the newly waxed floor.  “Yeowww!” Her arms windmilled as she fought for balance.  And lost.  

A black-soled Go-Go boot arched upward, revealing a teasing glimpse of tangerine-colored undergarments and bare skin that no one wanted to see.  Her butt sank to the floor, and she landed on the tiles with a solid thud.

The leash whipped through the air and coiled around the female officer’s knees.  The woman teetered for a brief moment before landing in a heap on Maude.  Her death grip on the leash released, and the dog headed straight for the officer.  His nose skimmed across her uniform toward the juncture of her thigh leaving a trail of canine slobber.

“Luther!”  Sydney’s shout wavered the dog’s interest.  

For a brief moment, Sydney thought the bumbling Luther smiled before he let loose a howl that echoed through the hospital corridor.  His howl sent the guards, George and Joan, in a dead run past Sydney.  From the horrified expression on the guards’ faces, they must have thought Luther was Satan’s disciple and they were his next victims.  The automatic doors clicked open as they exited the building, leaving their female colleague and the chaos Maude created.  

Tongue hanging and slobber flying, Luther charged straight for Sydney in a frenzied path of resolve.  “Luther!  No!  Stay!”  Why she even bothered with commands, she didn’t know.  The dog had flunked obedience school, which resulted in her mother picketing the canine school protesting unfair political biases, rather than facing up to the fact that Luther was untrainable. Mom had defended Earl in much the same manner.

Undeterred, Luther darted past the closet-sized gift shop into the path of a teenage candy striper.  The unsuspecting girl carried a tray stacked high with the inpatients’ afternoon fare of multi-colored Jell-O and cottage cheese.  

She tried to shout, really she did! But before she could, a storm of slobber and dog fur ploughed into the girl, and her tray shot into the air.  The surprised candy striper shrieked and tumbled into the neatly organized display of flowers and plants outside the gift shop.  The food flipped in a rainbow of colors.

“Luther!”  Sydney shifted right, avoiding the globs of Jell-O and curd that whizzed past her head and splattered against the wall and floor, like the abstract art of a finger-painting expert.  The tray clattered to the floor and spun like a top next to the candy striper.  The girl’s perfectly styled blond hair turned a palette of quivering green, orange and red.

The hound yelped in forewarning, but Sydney couldn’t get out of the way before he sailed through the air.  Landing on her chest, he knocked her to the floor.  His wet tongue lapped enthusiastically and she inhaled hot, long-dead-fish doggie breath.  “Luther, get off of me.”  

The dog howled, one of those Hounds of Baskerville howls that crept into your insides like the thick smoke in Denver’s alleyways.  Dog saliva pooled at the top of her buttoned silk top, seeping through the fine threads to the bare skin beneath, and oozed to her cleavage.  

Rolling out from underneath Luther, she stood quickly, which only hastened the warm, wet, squishy feeling.  The dog landed on all fours and jumped and rubbed around her like an oversized kitten.  Her shirt was askew and her hair disheveled.  Dog slobber hung on her arm and neck in a glob like a child’s imitation slime.  

A towel.  She needed a damn towel.  Or a cloth.  A high powered shower would be good.  She wanted to go back home to Denver, to her patients, to her own life.

“Boy, come here to Mama!”  Maude called from her position on the floor.

“Luther!”  Sydney tried to push him away, but his tail wagged so hard his body vibrated against her knee.  She knew when he was that happy to see her there was no escape.  

Unlike people, pets didn’t care if you left for months at time, as long as you came back.  She ought to know since all the men in her life had left her with a hole in her heart.  But that was something she’d for the most part worked out long ago.  But her mother was another problem altogether.  

Sydney had avoided coming home successfully for almost a year.  She hadn’t wanted to bail her mother out of yet another escapade.  Syd had already wasted the first half of her adult life doing just that.

What a welcome back to Crossing.  Only her brother could have convinced her to return, and his trouble couldn’t be ignored.  Her brother had been beaten to the point of unconsciousness and he needed her.  Her mother, well, Maude needed a mother, not her daughter.

Locating the trailing leash, Syd wrapped it around her fingers before the dog could continue his path of destruction.  Straightening her blouse, she tugged the leash and stepped into the pandemonium.    

Maude sprawled on the reception’s floor a scarce ten yards away, laughing as if she didn’t render the hospital a tornado zone.  

Sympathy for her mother quickly evaporated, replaced by exasperation.  Was she the only sane one in this family?  

Her mother ran a junkyard, drove a hearse, and routinely ended up in the county jail for not paying her speeding tickets.  Her brother Earl thought gainful employment was his job as a dishwasher at the town’s only greasy spoon, and in his free time, he played with his pet snakes.  Compared to them, she supposed she was the only normal one of the bunch.

Pausing for a moment, she reached down and rubbed Luther’s belly.  The calming, familiar motion helped her organize her thoughts.  First her mother, then Earl.   

Sydney had no choice but to rescue her mother and she stepped forward determined to get her mother and her brother and get out of the hospital.  She passed the candy striper, the girl’s face splotchy, pink and white to match her uniform.  The hospital intercom echoed, “Paging, Dr. Moore.  Paging, Dr. Moore.”  

The security guards George and John re-entered the building, their hands on their flashlight as if they needed protection from Sydney’s mother and the hound.  Thank God, the hospital didn’t give them a gun or the scene would be like an outtake of a spaghetti western.    

At the sight of the guards tiptoeing by, Luther gave an excited huff followed by a friendly tail shaking.  His greeting sent the guards scurrying to hover behind the reception desk, first circling the upheaval in the hospital’s front reception like buzzards.

From past Maude experiences, Syd knew there would be hell to pay.  She had become way too familiar with the judicial system, thanks to her mother.  Maude’s adventures usually cost Syd a few bucks and a migraine.  

The female guard--Sydney estimated her to be maybe twenty--pushed herself to her feet.  The officer’s shoulders shook with laughter.  Wisps of her jet-black hair loosened from her ponytail.  She reached down to help Sydney’s mother.  

Obviously, the officer was a new girl in town, unused to the frequency of such events instigated by Maude and had no idea that laughter was a drug for the woman.  Her mother got into enough trouble without the elixir of laughter.

Maude accepted the guard’s help and struggled to get a grip on the tiled floor with her Go-Go boots.  When she had both feet firmly on the tile, she tugged her skirt down as far as it would go, which wasn’t far enough for a respectable sixty-year-old--let alone her own mother.   

“Syd, honey, where have you been?  I was just standing here and then something spooked poor Luther and he went berserk.  Poor boy.  Then everything went crazy, and this lovely officer-” She patted the woman on the arm.  “-was kind enough to lend this fragile old lady a hand.  She even asked if I’d broken anything.  Sweet girl.”

Innocent, Maude sounded so damned innocent, like she had nothing to do with the havoc around her.  Like Sydney hadn’t witnessed the whole thing.  Her mother could cut down a single tree causing a forest to fall like dominoes and act as if she had nothing to do with it.  No wonder Syd had chosen counseling crazy people as a career; she’d been doing it all her life anyway.

“Mother.”  Despite her even tone, the old familiar panic settled low in Syd’s gut, and the indigestion burned, higher and sharper.  

The whole day, the whole event, her mother--it pissed her off.  Sydney Anderson had a Ph.D., for crying out loud; she should know better than to let her mother get to her.  

No, let herself be affected by her mother.  Geez, she’s doing it to me again.

She grabbed Luther’s leash and tugged.  “Mother, are you okay?”   

“Well, of course, I’m okay.”  Maude looked up in surprise, as if senior citizens fall down and get up uninjured every day.

Security Guard George stepped forward, evidently having pulled together enough courage to face Maude again.  His face turned red, his freckles standing out against his pale skin.  “Of course, she’s okay,” he shouted.  “She’s always okay, but look at what she’s done!”  

Maude glared at George and then John, the other guard, as they remained near the desk.  “What do you mean ‘what she’s done?’  I’m an old lady!  These fascist pigs overpowered me, tried to take away my rights.  I know my rights!”  Tufts of her orange hair stuck out in every direction as if she’d stepped out of a wind tunnel.

“Mother, these are security guards, not police officers.”  Luther fought against her firm grip on the leash, but Syd wasn’t letting him loose again.

“Wait a minute!” George protested.  “Rights?  What the—“

“George, you’re the one that started this.”  Maude smoothed her skirts, an accusing glare focused on the officer.  

Sydney knew what was next.  Her mother had an unfailing ability to blame everyone but herself.  

“I should have you arrested for harassment of senior citizens,” Maude jabbed her finger at his chest.  “Your mother would be ashamed of you.  Wait until I tell her of your treatment of a member of her bingo group.  I think I’ll file a complaint with the AARP.  They’ve got people, you know.  Connections.”

Sydney rolled her eyes.  AARP?  Sure, they’ve got connections.  To the greatest hotel discounts in the country.

Time to rescue the officers from the big, bad mother.  But who would rescue Syd?  She wouldn’t feel sorry for herself.  She wouldn’t. “Hey, George, what’s going on?”  

Oh yes, she definitely remembered Charles “George” Spencer.  The same age as her brother, three years younger than she, his family had been in this town since it’s beginning.  He’d been one of those jocks in school, having the time of his life, before going on to college and blending into the crowd of hometown boys on scholarships.  He’d returned to Crossing, settled down with a cheerleader, Mary something-or-other, and relived his peak days as an athletic legend on the school walls.  

She knew the type well.  Some of them were her best clients.

“Oh, you’ve done it now, George.  This is my daughter, the Dr. Syd, and--“

“Mother!”  Why did Maude chose this moment to brag on her daughter, when Syd’s hard-earned degree any other time represented “nothing but a crazy doctor” to her mother?

“Dr. Syd!”  George blushed to the roots of his red-blonde hair.  “I didn’t even realize.  I was, er, involved with my duties.  My, er, wife listens to your program every week.  Just the other day, my wife called in and...ah, well, you helped us out.”  

Standing behind Syd, Maude inserted her two cents. “Yeah, I bet your wife was real happy--“

“Mother!”  A quick poke to her mother’s abdomen stopped the flow of words and perhaps prevented further tussles with the law.  For the moment anyway.  “I appreciate your support, George.  I’m glad I could be of help.”  

As a renowned Denver psychologist, relationships and sex were Sydney’s business.  Thursdays, she even did an early morning talk show on K-NOW, “Sex In The Air.”  During office hours, she counseled couples and families.  She talked the talk, understood the theory, spoke the language, but failed to take her own advice, hiding the truth about her relationship failures from her listening audience.  

Ah, failed relationships--her ex-almost-husband, and business partner, would vouch for that.  

“Mom.”  She now stood in front of her mother.  Maude looked...tired, older.  Surges of regret filled Syd.  She should visit more often.  Touching her mother’s pudgy elbow, she urged her toward the elevator. “We’re here to pick up Earl, remember?  Earl needs us.”

“Oh yes, your brother...and it’s about time you got here.”  Maude picked up her blue denim purse from the floor and sashayed past the receptionist desk across the faded tile.

The events of a few minutes ago were forgotten, just as many events in Maude’s life were compartmentalized and ignored as if they never happened.  The chiffon shirt ebbed and flowed around the misaligned mini-skirt that still revealed the edge of her mother’s tangerine underwear.  A sixties revolution horror show.

“Come on.  We don’t got all day, Syd,” She turned and motioned for Syd to follow.  “Earl’s awaiting.  Stop this lollygagging around, and let’s go.”

Unbelievable.  The woman had nearly destroyed the hospital.  

God, Sydney wished she could laugh.  She’d almost forgotten how. She wanted to remember what it was like to laugh with and at her mother.  When Syd didn’t have to be the grown up.  Before her father left them and life became something you had to get through.

Maude rambled on about the ignorance of other senior citizens, inept rent-a-cops pretending to be real officers, and something about the rights of animals.  

“George, I’ll take care of this later, okay?” Sydney laid her hand on his arm.  

Still blushing, George nodded.   “P-pleasure to meet you.”

She briefly wondered what question his wife had called in to ask.  Maybe she was the one wanting details about lap dancing methods to keep your man at home and away from the topless bars.  

But that was Denver, a mere sixty miles away, and an entirely different world.  She was here to pick up her brother. A different, but no less, taxing job.  Yesterday, her brother had called and begged her to drive him from the hospital.  He didn’t want to ride home in the hearse that Mom called the “family wagon.”  

More importantly, Sydney had detected a note of desperation, something in his voice that told her that there was more to what had happened than he’d just been beaten.  She was worried.  Her brother had been in trouble before, but that was back in high school.  Surely he’d grown up since then.

She sighed, following her mother down the poorly lit hallway.  Maybe she could talk to Earl, sound him out, and discover what was really going on.

Reaching forward, she grasped the edge of Maude’s mini-skirt and tugged the hem toward her knees.  The skirt stopped high mid thigh.  “Come on, Mom.  I don’t have all day.”  

Maude whished on.  Luther came along willingly, sniffing his way down the hallway, a smug smile on his face.

The information desk had told her that her brother was on the patient wing, the second floor.  She followed Maude to the service elevator at the end of the hallway, past an array of black and white framed photos of the who’s who of local physicians.  It was a short hallway.  

All she had to do was make it upstairs to Earl’s room without another Maude incident.  A relatively simple task considering the hallways were empty and the town was small.

The elevator doors dinged and glided open in front of them.  Inside the elevator, in a wheelchair, sat her brother.  His left palm rested on his cheek, while his other hand brushed back his carrot-colored hair. A white-starched uniformed nurse wheeled him out into the hallway. Another person stood shadowed in the far back corner, but Sydney’s attention focused on her brother.

“Hey, Syd.”  Earl looked up, revealing his swollen and bruised face, and then folded his hands in his lap.  An attempt at a smile turned into a painful grimace.

She’d known he’d been injured, enough to have a slight concussion, but she didn’t know why or who had done the deed. And she hadn’t expected it to look this bad.  She bent to hug her brother.  Earl’s hands shook even as he patted her back, and she noticed the bruising on his cheek extended to his left eye and more marks darkened his neck.  She stood up and brushed a tear from her eye.  “God, Earl, we’ve really got to talk.”

He nodded and stared off into space, something Earl did quite frequently when avoiding something.  

“We are going to talk, brother.”  

“Okay, already, sis.  I got it the first time, but there’s nothing to talk about.”  

“Sure.  Well, let’s get you home.  Mother?”  She turned around.  Her mother had disappeared without a trace.  “Great!  Did you see where Mother went?  Luther?”  How could she lose track of those two?

“Maude headed toward the bathroom, dragged your mutt, and said she’d be right back.” A voice behind Earl answered. The husky, very masculine voice sounded familiar.  

Oh no.  Syd searched the shadowy corner of the elevator, the flickering of the fluorescent light presenting a silent-movie stage setting.

And then her heart stopped.  She knew that voice.

Dressed in black, he stepped from the shadows behind Earl.  

Her breath caught in her throat when she looked at the one man she could never forget.  

Damn.  Logan Delaney.   

“Sydney Anderson, it’s been a long time.”  

Her heart skittered to an erotic beat.  She didn’t dare meet his eyes.  God, this was turning into the worst day of her adult life, and she looked like the Colorado drool queen in a wet silk T-shirt, instead of her usual suave and cool self.  

The last time she’d seen Logan she had been nearly eighteen, making out on the bench seat of his Ford pick-up, her prom dress hiked to reveal her hither parts.  High school, when she was a gangly geek with a tangle of red hair down her back, glasses and a huge crush on Crossing High’s resident rodeo stud.  She remembered Logan as a tall boy with dark, curly hair, a kind smile and deep blue eyes--and a hot body that would make any teen girl cream her jeans.  

But she wasn’t a kid anymore.

And by George, the boy sure had grown up.  She couldn’t help but drink in the sight of him, like a drowning victim sucked in air.  Pitiful, she was damn pitiful.  It was a shame that Father Time had been so kind to Logan.  She’d have felt better if he’d gotten a beer belly, thinning hair or something.  

Instead he was rugged and scruffy, still with that bad-boy aura that had surprisingly drawn Sydney, a diligent, no nonsense teenager with succinct goals, all culminating with getting out of town.   

Dark hair curled lazily above the collar of his black Bomber jacket, one of those biker ones with the oversized silver zippers.  The jacket dangled over blue jeans that were partially covered by leather chaps.  Chaps that molded parts that needed no emphasis.

Yowzee, sweet Lord!  He was nothing like Syd’s sensible yuppie ex, exactly why she’d chosen her supposedly dependable partner.  Bad boys left good girls wanting more.  No, bad boys left good girls. Period.  End of story, without a backward glance, a phone call, or even a postcard.  

But now she knew all boys left good girls behind.

Logan caught her giving him the once over, and she blushed like a teenager.  His intense blue gaze, combined with his grin, invited images of tangled sheets and summer nights.  Her hormones went into overdrive, and her thoughts slid as quickly to the gutter.  She remembered all too well how he looked underneath those clothes.

Logan, her high school sweetheart.  

Her first.  The only man she’d ever wanted to marry.  Hell, the only man she’d wanted.  The only man she’d allowed under her skin and into her panties.

Damn him.

“Logan Delaney, what the hell are you doing here?”

 Mental hand slap.  Excellent approach, Anderson.  Cool, calm, collected, weak-kneed and wobbly heart.  Barely an hour in Crossing, and she had already reverted to a country bumpkin.

“Sis!  Pull it in.  Logan just got into town and heard I was in the hospital.  He stopped by and was bringing me down to meet you and Mom.”  Earl defended his buddy.

Sydney pulled her tongue in all the same, resisting the urge to stick it out at dear brother.

“Thanks, Nurse.  I think we can take it from here.”   Logan stepped forward and gave the woman a boyish grin.  “Thanks for taking such good care of my buddy.”

The nurse beamed back at him, blushing to the roots of her blonde hair.  “You’re quite welcome, Logan, and I mean it.  Anytime.”  Instead of taking his hand, she wrapped Logan in a hug.  “Procedure dictates that I walk with you to the door, if you don’t mind?”

“Not at all, if you don’t mind if I take the driver’s seat.”  

Images of Logan in the driver’s seat, driving her, flashed before Syd.  She’d sternly counseled herself to forget about him, reminded herself that first loves always seemed more alluring years down the road, but nothing ever dimmed the thoughts of this man.  

“Not a problem,” the nurse said.  “I’ll just follow you.”

Easing in behind the wheelchair, Logan pushed it into the hallway and winked at Sydney.  “Ready, Syd?”

Did everyone fall at this man’s feet?  Syd most certainly was not one of his harem, and if he thought she’d fall back into his arms, he had another think coming.   

Logan rolled the wheelchair onto the slick, tiled floors.  Syd had no choice but to follow, beside the nurse who googoo-eyed Logan like he was a fresh piece of meat.  

As they passed the reception, George and John looked him up and down.  Syd could hardly blame them.  Logan wore his bad boy charisma like a badge, and he did look dangerous in his leathers...and oh so good.

In a whoosh of cheap drugstore perfume, Maude appeared and placed her hand on Earl’s shoulder.  Logan slowed the chair to a stop.  “Hi ya, son.  How are they treating you in this joint?”

Luther placed his head in Earl’s lap.  The dog’s sad, brown eyes gazed adoringly at her brother.  Maude leaned over her son and clucked like a mother hen.  When she stood up, she squinted at Logan and smiled.  “Oh, and hello there, Logan, you good-looking hunk!  Where have you been?  You’ve sure made yourself scarce.”

Syd momentarily panicked, held her breath and then exhaled in relief.  At least this time, Maude hadn’t opened her mouth and said something like, “Last time I saw you, I had high hopes that you were going to marry my daughter.”  Knowing her mother, Syd needed to get her away from Logan before the past was flaunted in her face...again.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Anderson.”  Logan grinned that irritatingly sexy smile.  He deliberately scanned the demolition derby in the front lobby.  His fingers rested lightly on the handle of Earl’s wheelchair.

Those fingers...long, calloused from mechanic’s work at his father’s garage.  Or at least back in high school they were.  She remembered his roughened, sensual, forbidden touch as clearly as if it were yesterday.  Her traitorous nipples sprang to attention.  Down, girls.  Instead, the tips strained even more urgently against her silk blouse, her memories stronger than her willpower.  Traitors.

That was long ago, she told herself and her body.  She was a mature adult now, not a lovesick, horny schoolgirl.

He flashed her one of those damn smiles again, scanned the room with that sexy grin plastered on his face, and said, “Well, holy shit, all the Andersons are back in town.” .

Synopsis/Pitch:

When well-known radio psychologist Sydney Anderson returns to her small Colorado hometown, she discovers a nationwide smuggling ring involving her zany family, a stalker, and her sexy high school sweetheart.

Crossing, Colorado is like most small towns at first glance:  everyone knows everyone’s business, but do they?  

When Denver psychologist and well known radio talk host of “Ask Dr. Syd, A Dating Guru’s Advice,” Sydney Anderson returns home to once again rescue her family, she finds herself in the midst of an international smuggling ring that may involve her wacky family.  She knew her relatives bordered on the crazy, misguided side, but illegal?  Her entire life has been devoted to overcoming the stigma of being “one of those crazy Andersons,” and she thought she had.  

Her father’s desertion, her crazy mother’s antics, and the gossipy town changed Syd, from the high-spirited prankster into a serious, dedicated professional with no interest in relationships or frivolous amusement.  Returning to Crossing forces her to face her deep-seated needs to accept her family, allowing everyone their faults, and learn to love unconditionally.

Her safe, orderly world is further thrown into spiraling chaos when her former high school flame Logan Delaney arrives toting an attitude and riding a Harley.   He wasn’t good for her then--how could he possibly be good for her now?

Logan cringes upon returning to the hometown where his reputation as rebel and rodeo world champion haunts him.  An injury changed his bad boy ways and his rodeo career years ago, but no one lets him forget his old repute, and his employers, the U.S. Customs, are banking on his less than upright reputation to put the sting on the previously impenetrable smuggling ring.   

The last person Logan expected to see was Sydney, the girl he could never forget, and the last persons he suspected of illegal activities were her family.  They might be a bit strange, but not criminals in his book, especially their son and his best friend.  

But he has a job to do and he’ll do it.  Unfortunately, he’s undercover and everyone, including Syd, believe he’s the one involved with legal activities. Will his job cost him his second chance at love and life and jeopardize the career he’s worked hard to get?

A domino series of events pushes Logan and Sydney together:  a violent attack on Syd’s brother, the mysterious appearance of boxes of designer T-shirts in her mother’s junkyard, her crazy mother decides to carry a gun, the emergence of a familiar looking senior citizen dishwasher, the disappearance of her nephew, and then her brother suddenly decides to be honorable and risk his life.  

And now a stalker has followed Syd from Denver, claiming to be her sexual soul mate.  The past is further revisited when the dishwasher claims to be Syd’s long lost father.  A cold case murder holds the key to uncovering the mastermind of this smuggling and money laundering business. All clues link the culprit to a local restaurateur, and their mutual friend, a pastor’s son.  The clock begins to tick when they must find the missing nephew before the killer strikes again.

During their quest to solve the crime that turns their lives inside out, Sydney and Logan rekindle a love that never quite died and realize that no matter how far you run there’s no place like home and no love like the one you left behind.

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