No Strings

Reese Daniels regards her posting to Lake City, Colorado, as a temporary setback. She will do the sheriff’s job, endure a quiet year, and leave. Forest ranger M. Z. Morgan has made the town her home and sees more to value in its slower rhythms. An attraction between them seems uncomplicated enough if neither expects it to last. They agree to a casual arrangement, offering warmth and companionship through the long winter without promises about the future. Familiarity gradually makes those limits harder to maintain. The more they share, the less convincing it becomes to treat their time together as something with a fixed expiration date. Reese and Morgan must decide whether the rules that made the relationship possible are now preventing them from recognizing what it has become.