Tempt Me

 A grief therapist. A single father. A girl who doesn’t speak. 

 In the small town of Cedar Hollow, healing doesn't arrive with grand gestures—it slips in quietly, breath by breath.

Claire Sandell wasn’t looking for redemption. Just a place to breathe. A place to rest after a career collapse and a silence that swallowed her too deeply. Cedar Hollow offers quiet, mismatched furniture, and a girl named Ivy Dyer—eight years old and heartbreakingly mute after the loss of her mother.

Wes Dyer didn’t ask for help. Grief taught him to protect with distance, to speak in actions not words. But when Claire walks into his world—calm, steady, and unwilling to “fix” his daughter—the barriers he’s lived behind begin to bend.

As treehouses are built, silences shared, and hope found in purple crayon drawings and porch light conversations, Claire and Wes discover that love doesn't need to be loud to last.

But just as Claire begins to believe in second chances, a single overheard sentence threatens to undo it all. 

 For readers who believe that love can be quiet, healing takes time, and found family is worth the risk.