Grieving the loss of her last living relative, erotic romance writer Charlotte Sterling retreats to Sterling House, her family's faded mountain inn in Colorado, determined to live quietly and keep passion where it feels safe, on the page. Her hard-won solitude ends the day Beau Braden arrives to renovate the old inn. Beau is running from grief of his own, still carrying guilt over the death of his first love, and the quiet, defunct property offers the calm he needs before he steps into the very public spotlight of a home-renovation reality show. Neither of them is looking for an attachment, let alone a fling, yet the whimsical, unexpectedly sexy innkeeper gets under his skin, and the rugged craftsman stirs something Charlotte thought she had buried for good. As the renovations throw them together day after day, romantic evenings give way to intimate conversations, and the connection between them grows impossible to ignore. Both have spent years convinced they could only heal alone. The closer they become, the more they wonder whether the passion they keep denying might be the one thing strong enough to mend them, together.