Brenda Jackson welcomes you back to Catalina Cove, where love is waiting to be reclaimed...

Ashley Ryan never doubted that her husband, Devon, was the love of her life. Even now, three years after Devon died in a car wreck while on a business trip, Ashley can’t bring herself to move on. But when her girlfriends surprise her with a getaway to beautiful Catalina Cove, Louisiana, she gets the shock of her life when she encounters a man—bearded, more rugged than before, but unmistakably her Devon.

“Ray Sullivan” moved to this quiet coastal town after waking up in a hospital with amnesia. Haunted by a life he can’t remember, he’s built walls around his heart and a quiet life running boat tours—a life that includes no recollection of Ashley, a woman he suddenly finds himself irresistibly drawn to.

Doctors warn Ashley of the danger in forcing her husband to remember the past. Though she longs to tell him the truth, she finds herself falling all over again for a man she knows may never truly come back to her. In this place where healing and second chances are just a heartbeat away, can love take root once more?






Live with no excuses and love with no regrets.

—Montel





PROLOGUE


“DELIVERY FOR ASHLEY RYAN.”

Ashley glanced over her shoulder and did a double take. A man was standing in the doorway of StayNTouch, her social media network firm, carrying the largest arrangements of flowers she’d ever seen. There had to be at least five dozen red roses in that vase. And sitting pretty in the middle of the roses was a single sunflower.

She shook her head. “He wouldn’t.”

Her business partner and best friend since college, Emmie Givens, chuckled. “He would. It’s your fifth wedding anniversary and you know as well as I do that your husband likes doing everything in a big way, so don’t act surprised.”

Emmie was right—she shouldn’t be surprised, although she hadn’t expected anything so outlandishly extravagant. She would be the first to admit the first two years had been challenging, and all because of a pact they’d made on their wedding night.

While in their hotel room in Jamaica, naked in bed and a little tipsy on wine, love and sex, they’d made goals for their marriage. Goals they intended to achieve by their fifth wedding anniversary. They pledged to be successful in their chosen occupations and finances, which would require hard work, dedication and sacrifices. For her, the biggest sacrifice had been agreeing not to start a family until after the fifth year. But Devon had promised that when they reached the five-year mark and had accomplished all their goals, they would return to Jamaica to not only celebrate fulfilling all their accomplishments but to make their baby.

Those first two years would not have put such a strain on their marriage if she and Devon hadn’t been two success-driven individuals. But they had been, and for a time, instead of competing against outside forces, they started opposing each other. That was when things seemed to start falling apart in their marriage.

There was never any doubt in her mind, even through all their difficult times, that Devon loved her. Just like he’d known she loved him. When they saw their marriage headed for serious trouble, they had sought marriage counseling. Doing so had helped and for the past three years they’d worked hard to put their marriage first and their ambitions second. In the end, what had saved their marriage was their love and commitment to each other.

“Where do you want these, lady?” the deliveryman asked.

“In my office. Please follow me.”

Moments later, alone in her office, Ashley sat behind the desk and stared at the huge floral arrangement. She’d counted and just as she’d thought there were sixty roses. A dozen for every year of their lives together. One rose for every month. And the single sunflower had a special meaning all its own.

The night they’d met on a blind date at Harvard, he’d given her a single sunflower. She’d been working on her MBA, and Devon had been working through dual graduate degrees in computer technology and finance. He was four years older and for her it had been love at first sight. Devon always said it had been likewise for him. He’d graduated two years before she had and landed a job with a technology firm in New York. They’d gotten married a year after she’d graduated from college.