Honor

Xander is a hotshot wildland firefighter and the superintendent of his crew. The job is all he has known. He watched it wreck his parents' marriage, so he decided long ago that he was not a relationship kind of man.

Then Teddy moves into the house down the street. She is his best friend's sister, recently widowed, raising two young kids and expecting another. Xander has quietly wanted her for years, though to her he has only ever been her brother's friend.

Teddy lost her husband and has closed herself off since. Xander knows that getting past her defenses will be close to impossible, but he wants to prove he intends to stay. His duty to his crew has always come first, and loving her may mean giving up the only life he has built.

This is a small town contemporary romance told from Xander's point of view, in first person. It is a friends-to-lovers story with a forced proximity setup, a single mom heroine who is curvy, and a love-after-loss thread.

Expect angst alongside the slow work of winning her trust. The book is the third in the Sky Ridge Hotshots series, and the romance is written with a high heat level.