Hazel stopped living for herself at seventeen, instead she lives the dreams of her lost siblings. Until a chance encounter at a party changes everything.
Years ago Hazel May had turned away from the music she loved to farm alongside her grandparents. Contently she had raised her son, and didn’t make waves. Except for once a month, when a band from the city let her be a musician again, two songs at a time.
Which is how she found herself in the middle of a crowd of drunk college students and one possibly not drunk preacher. Not just any preacher, her preacher handsome Ruston Abbott, the one she saw every week. How could she resist dancing with him? Talking to him? Being alone with him? Which was how he blew her boots off, literarily and figuratively, forcing her to drive home barefoot.
Now she has to watch him week after week and think about him in a way she shouldn’t. Because Hazel wasn’t the sort of woman he needed in his life. After she had a fatherless son and the reputation to match. And she couldn’t forgive his god for taking her family from her. Or leaving her behind.
Except their future is torn out of her control as gossip swirls around town. Is she marrying him to save his job or for more selfish reasons? Is it possible she can make a future from the ashes of her past? Can she dream for herself for once?