Suzie Hart has it all. A beautiful home, friends and family, and the sweetest job in the world. She's the best darned cook in Harbor Falls, North Carolina, and has the street cred to prove it. She runs her own bed and breakfast, writes a food blog, and is working on her first cookbook.

Life is perfect. Right?

Wrong. You see, Suzie has a secret. And when that secret rides up to her doorstep on a bad-ass Harley and tosses her not-so-perfect little world into some kind of big, bad tumble, happy-go-lucky Suzie panics.

Brad Matthews doesn't have a secret, he has a plan--and that plan includes luring Suzie back into his life. When she worked as his sous chef in Asheville, he had no intention of falling in love with the sassy chef, or any woman for that matter. No room in his life for romance. But when Suzie disappeared and took Brad's heart with her, his good intentions shattered. Now that he's found her again, he's not about to let her alter the new path he's set out for his life--and hers.

Second Edition, Revised and Updated, 2019

This free western romance novel is your introduction to the Parker Ranches, Inc. cowboy romance series!

When John Rankin’s wife, Annie, dies leaving him with two children to raise, he’s not quite sure how he can do that and run a working cattle ranch, too. Annie’s domain was home and hearth, and her dying put a hole in his day-to-day rancher lifestyle—far beyond the one she left in his heart.

But his heart is only one of his problems, when ten-year-old Callie decides to rebel. Missing her mom and unsure how her life is unfolding, Callie pushes back at every turn and John is unsure how to help her. Then his friend, Buck McGinnis, introduces him to Abby Cooper, and life becomes even more complicated.

The Parker Ranches, Inc. series launches with this short novella, The Rancher’s Second Chance, establishing the patriarch of the family, John Rankin, and his second chance at love and healing his family.

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The Parker Ranches, Inc. series is a contemporary western romance series written by award-winning and best-selling romance author Maddie James.

The books in this series are linked by strong family relationships on multiple ranch settings in Montana, South Dakota, Texas, and Kentucky. The Parker and Rankin families—Montana ranchers for generations—anchor the series and provide the foundation for stories to come. As families grow, new ranch partnerships are formed, and the series continues, you’ll also eventually meet the South Dakota MacKay, and the Texas/Kentucky Remington families.

Parker Ranches, Inc. books are first and foremost romance stories with happily-ever-after endings. Some are sweet, most are steamy, and a few are erotic. These novels and novellas always feature cowboy heroes and the women who love them—often with complicated personal relationships and external challenges that require time and attention to sort out.

Welcome to Rankin’s Rock Creek Ranch.

Callie McKenna is going home. Her father has suffered a fall from his horse and she is needed back at the ranch. She temporarily leaves New York and her promotion behind to be with her family in Montana, planning only to stay until her father is well again.

What she doesn't expect is to rekindle an old relationship with ranch hand, Murphy Reynolds.

Nothing goes according to plan. Callie must face her past, to not only mend some family fences, but to figure out what is happening between her and Murphy. She knows the choices she makes now will shape her future. But will that future be with Murphy and her family on the ranch, or will it be back in New York, where her promotion waits along with that quaint little brownstone she adores?

The former ballerina now spends her time running a successful boutique gift shop called Romantically Yours, located in the heart of downtown Harbor Falls. With romance her business, who would guess Gracie never intends fall in love again, no matter how loud her biological clock keeps ticking?

But when her new tenant, Rick Price, moves in next door with his six-year-old daughter Izzie—both who seem intent on wreaking havoc in her life and her heart—Gracie realizes she has to finally face her past, in order to grab on to her future.

All of My Heart

Life is perfect. When Suzie Hart inherits the lakeside Victorian cottage that eventually becomes Sweet Hart Inn, she imagines her life all planned out ahead of her. She will run the inn, write her recipes, conduct her cooking classes, and pick up an occasional catering job with her cousin Sydney Hart, who owns the local bakery. Her life in Harbor Falls is predictable--a welcome change from the chaos of recent months--and that's the way she likes it. Predictability makes her happy.

And then chaos rides his bad ass Harley up to her bed and breakfast doorstep--and her perfect, predictable, and well-planned world starts crumbling like yesterday's blueberry muffins.

Brad Matthews has other ideas. In fact, he has a plan. When Suzie worked as his sous chef in Asheville several months earlier, he had no intention of falling in love with the sassy chef--no room in his life for romance. But when Suzie disappeared and took Brad's heart with her, his good intentions shattered. And even though Brad's plan involves making a lot of people in Harbor Falls angry (Suzie included), it is part of a bigger plan to get his own life and career on track, and to win Suzie Hart back into his arms--permanently.

But can Suzie let go of their muddled past, and her well-planned future, in order to finally find happiness with hunky Chef Brad? And can Brad alter his own plan, in order to get Suzie back?

Take My Heart

When Shelley Hart ran off and married her sister's fiancé, the whole town of Harbor Falls was in a twitter. A few years later, her husband deceased and with two little girls in tow, her only recourse is to go home for the holidays. Will her sister, Suzie, forgive her? And what about that boy she left behind?

Harbor Falls Police Officer Matt Branson values being alone. Dubbed the town hermit, he prefers the solitude of his mountain cabin to socializing with friends--friends who say he still pines after the woman who got away. But the snowy day he pulls over an older model sedan speeding into Harbor Falls, things change. His gut slams against his backbone as a tearful woman rolls down the car window. His heart melts when she looks up into his eyes.

Shelley Hart is back in town--the woman who sent him into his cave in the first place.

It’s been a decade since Garth Nash left the Triple R Ranch to become a bull riding star. Now he’s back home to pay his final respects to the man he’d loved like a father, and to console the pesky tomboy he’d loved like a little sister.

But there’s nothing pesky or boyish about Amarilla Ray now. She’s a gorgeous, barrel-racing cowgirl who knows exactly what she wants—to compete at the Cowgirl Classic. Just once. And then she can get on with the rest of her life.

Rilla had loved Garth like a big brother all those years ago, but today, her feelings are taking turns in a whole new direction, and suddenly it feels like Garth just might be the rest of her life.

But rodeo took him from her once. And she knows he’s bound to leave again. Can she take the risk and fall in love? Can he? Or will rodeo win out again, and leave them both broken?

All Rob Black wants for Christmas is happy children and to be home. His niece and three nephews deserve a great Christmas but unfortunately, he has to fly off to California to satisfy his business partner—and can’t deliver. Can the nanny come to his rescue?

A series of twisted tales set both Wyn and Rob on a path of untruths they finally have to face. Have they both been cast in unsuitable roles? Or are they each exactly where they need to be?

The sequel to Rawhide and Roses. The long-requested sequel to Maddie's very first published book will soon be released!

Readers want to know...

What happened to Jillie and Mack's relationship at the end of Rawhide & Roses?

Will they get back together?

What is their story?

While Kim Martin and Thad Winchester find their happily-ever-after in Roses & Rawhide, their best friends, Jillie Abernathy and Mack Montgomery, end their sleeping-bag-sharing relationship during the rugged, two-week pack trip into the Colorado San Juan mountains.

But when Kim and Thad host their wedding at Thad’s Colorado ranch a few months later, Mack and Jillie must come face-to-face with reality—and with each other. She’s the maid of honor. He’s the best man. Both are harboring secrets—secrets that could break a potential future relationship if they both avoid telling the truth.

Can they reveal those secrets to each other? And if so, can they get past the withheld truths to plan a future together?

Playing good sport to appease her best friend was one thing, but sophisticated Kim Martin was hardly equipped for a Colorado camping trip. Especially when their mountain guide was a rough-edged cowboy who was as untamed as the wilderness. His outdoors style might jump-start some women but a strictly indoors woman like Kim found him—almost resistible.

He’s rawhide...

Thad Winchester’s patience for city women was wearing as thin as the seat of his jeans. But there was something about Kim that was putting his hard-and-fast don’t-touch rule to the test. The plucky blonde was just the woman to share his Flying W. Ranch. All Thad had to do was bring out the wildflower in the refined beauty, and convince her that he was her man. Bar nothing.

Resisting the lure of Harbor Falls is difficult for residents and long-time vacationers alike. Set against the backdrop of Appalachia, the town is proud of its charming downtown with Victorian shopfronts and unique store offerings. There is a downtown mall, a sweet shop and bakery, the library, a diner and cafe, a gift shop, a bookstore, an elementary and high school, a town hall, a local grocer, a landscaping business and nursery, and a youth center. Just to name a few. The characters who live in Harbor Falls and work in these businesses are just as homespun and homegrown as the town.

Sitting on the edge of town and on the shores of the lake is a bed and breakfast inn owned by Suzie Hart. She calls this inn the Sweet Hart Inn, because well, Suzie is a chef of fantastic proportions, sweets are her forte, and of course her last name is Hart—which probably has nothing to do with the fact that she occasionally likes to dabble in matchmaking.

Matchbaker, matchbaker bake me a match?

You’ll meet Suzie in the first book of the series, All of My Heart. All Suzie Hart really wants to do is run Sweet Hart Inn, write her cookbooks, and cook. After all, food is love, and love is food. Right? What happens, though, is an unexpected happily-ever-after (for her!), a television cooking show that puts her in the national spotlight, and a few happenstance matchmaking gigs that seal the deal on her local matchmaking celebrity.

This collection includes all fifteen books in the complete Harbor Falls Romance Series set in the small town of Harbor Falls, North Carolina—including the eight Matchmaking Chef stories that weave a common thread of matchmaking via the talented Suzie Hart. Of course, sometimes characters take matters in their own hands and when they do, anything can happen!

Welcome to Harbor Falls!

Suzie Hart Matthews is hard at work on her new cookbook, Perfectly Matched, when she asks the local wallflower, Mary Lou Picketts, to help her with a project.

Mary Lou fantasizes about falling in love with country music star Nash Rhodes, but is ready to settle for Barry Phillips down the street. After all, Barry is her real boyfriend and he has actually popped the question. The likelihood that Nash Rhodes ever will, is slim-to-none. Nash is nothing more than a celebrity crush waiting to never happen.

Nash Rhodes enjoys his newfound status in the country music world—after all, it is what he’s worked toward for years—but he longs for a break in the action to ground himself in home and family after months of touring, night-after-night of concert halls, and days-upon-end of sleeping in his traveling bus. And while he also enjoys his adoring fans, and knows his career is dependent upon them, he’s grown weary of being followed. Just when he has made plans to head home to Louisiana for a long weekend, the chance to play a benefit concert presents itself and he’s not sure he can refuse.

When Nash comes to Harbor Falls for the music benefit to support the local children’s hospital, Suzie wonders if she can perfectly match the miss-matched couple of Mary Lou Picketts and Nash Rhodes. After all, they seem perfect for each other, and she had managed to hook her little sister, Shelley, back up with her old high school boyfriend, Matt, hadn’t she? Can she do it again?

Sarah MacKay, fresh off the South Dakota ranch she grew up on, and having landed the runner-up spot on the American Star country music talent show, is touted as the up-and-coming country music star of the year. When she tangles with her manager at the Highlands Ranch annual barbecue, Cole steps up to the plate to protect her from the smarmy, poor excuse of a human being. Emotions are high and sparks fly, and for the first time in his adult life, Cole feels something for a woman he does not want to lose.

But it’s just a weekend, right? Cole will be back home on the Branded Filly ranch in Montana come Monday, and Sarah has a career to get off the ground. Can a love-at-first-sight weekend turn into the happily-ever-after neither of them is sure they even want?

But being back home at Sweet Grass is almost more of a challenge than heading up a special ops mission in Libya, especially when something familiar turns out to be the major challenge—his ex-wife, Brandley Mendoza.

Brandley and Ethan’s marriage quickly unraveled when he headed into SEAL training, and by the time of his first deployment, their relationship was fatally severed. Still, she keeps in close contact with the MacKays and considers them family. Hired by Ethan’s brother to review the ranch’s accounting books after their father’s death, Brandley soon discovers Evan has an ulterior motive. Why he thinks she is the person to help Ethan get his head back on straight, she doesn’t know, especially when she’s dealing with problems of her own—namely, her ex-husband, who is seeking full custody of their daughter.

But she risks coming down from her Black Hills safe haven to find out—only to realize that her heart is still vulnerable, and that Ethan isn’t the cowboy she fell in love with when they were kids.

Can Brandley tease out the cowboy in Ethan’s black sheep heart and rediscover the love they once shared? Can she resolve the issues of her own shaky past, to let herself trust again? Or are they both too far gone to even try?

Book One: His Forever Kiss

Claire Winslow vacations on an East Coast barrier island, content with her life and her potential future--until the illusion of a man walking the misty shore haunts her. Then one kiss--a beautiful, soulful, stolen kiss in the night--and her life changes forever.

Nearly 300 years past, Jack Porter is in hot pursuit of his kidnapped wife. Not an easy feat considering the year is 1718 and the kidnapper is the notorious pirate Blackbeard aka Edward Teach. Determined to rescue his wife and take the pirate's head in the process, Jack steals aboard the pirate's ship to save her.

His Forever Kiss sends Jack and Claire on a wild search through time, not only for the resolution to a powerful attraction between them, but also for a historical artifact that holds the key to their future happiness--the coveted silver-plated chalice made from Blackbeard's skull.

Book Two: Her Forever Love

Pitched from a ship during a violent storm in the year 1746, Victoria Porter washes ashore, soon to be rescued by a man on a strange mechanical beast who whisks her away into a world beyond anything she could have imagined.

In 2014, Colton MacKenzie fears he has written his last bestselling horror novel until he discovers two things--The Cult of Teach and a tantalizing nymph wandering an Ocracoke Island beach. Fascinated by the history that surrounds the Legend of Blackbeard's Chalice, he seeks to learn more about these modern-day pirates and hopefully write a bestseller using the premise.

He'd planned on riding this ride solo until the strange waif on the back of his Harley touches him in ways his demons hadn't let anyone touch in a long, long time....

Book Three: Her Forever Dream

Jackson Porter seeks to fulfill his mother, Claire Porter's, dying request, and find answers about the imaginary lover who haunts his nights. His future, he learns, is in a place called Ohio, miles and centuries away from his barrier island home in 1745. The land, his dying mother tells him, is his legacy. She urges him to claim it.

In the year 2038, Kari Upton is driven to fight federal sanctions to save her land and her valuable poppy crops. Her upcoming marriage is one of convenience. Marrying Tye Gentry will save her Ohio farmland. There is no other way to gain power than to marry him and ride on his father's political coattails to the state legislature.

And all would be perfect if it weren't for those erotic dreams of a man with long dark hair who haunts her day and night....

Jake Remington is a wealthy Texas cowboy whose family land borders the McCoy Highlands ranch, although he now practices law and lives in Kentucky. He is back in Texas to settle a land dispute between his parents and the McCoys and plans to take care of business and get the hell out of Dodge before he gets himself into trouble. Again.

Because trouble for Jake always comes in the form of a Texas beauty he can’t keep his hands off. His last temptation landed him with a lawsuit. But when he bumps into Mira coming out of his hotel room at Heath McCoy’s resort, keeping his hands off the hotel maid is nearly impossible.

Suzie Hart is earning quite the reputation as a matchmaking chef in the small town of Harbor Falls, North Carolina. Can she navigate the dating game for Lyssa Larkin?

When puppy nanny, Lyssa Larkin, tells her friends she has given up on dating and is devoting her life to dogs, Suzie realizes it’s time to take matters into her own hands. She sets up a series of speed dating lunches for Lyssa at Sweet Hart Inn, designed to help the former Harbor Falls High Homecoming Queen meet as many men as possible in a short time period. Suzie knows Lyssa needs a push and some confidence—but soon realizes she may have bitten off more than she can chew. Lyssa inspects and rejects her dates in two bites and sends them on their way. Suzie wonders if Lyssa really wants to date or just eat double lunches, and worries that soon Lyssa’s hips won’t fit her dainty dining room chairs.

That is until Suzie is approached by a potential suitor who is falling for Lyssa hard and fast—one who isn’t on Suzie’s original radar screen—and can’t help working her matchmaking magic behind the speed dating scene. But will Lyssa reject this suitor as well?

The Dating Game continues the Harbor Falls, Sweet Hart Inn romance series featuring Suzie Hart’s matchmaking antics. If you like a little humor with your romance, a bit of culinary expertise mashed up with snappy dialogue, imperfect characters, and a happily-ever-after ending, then perhaps The Dating Game is for you.

As local celebrity chef Suzie Hart starts to step out of her regional fame and into the bigger world, she launches her debut cooking show with some local flavor—a blind date matchmaking sketch with a friend that goes south quicker than geese in winter….

Becca North doesn’t want a boyfriend—she is so off men. Her best friend Nora, however, makes boyfriend hunting a sport. When Nora, owner of the Harbor Falls’ bookstore, Nora’s Novel Niche, meets Suzie the matchmaking chef during a book signing at her store, she finagles her way into a romantic picnic blind date lunch on Suzie’s new television show. Nora drags a reluctant Becca along for moral support.

Thing is, Nora’s blind date would rather check out Becca.

Sam Ackerman understands the hazards of being childhood friends with Suzie Hart. Suzie has a way of convincing friends to do her bidding—whether they want to or not. How the landscaper gets finagled into this blind date scenario with a local book store owner is all Suzie’s doings—and the fact that he is caught up in a matchmaking scheme is not lost on him.

Still, Suzie is persistent and he caves—but only as a favor. He’s not interested in dating right now, let alone get joined at the hip with some blind date, husband-hunting, boyfriend-seeker. He’s off women.

And then he spies Becca.

What Jillian Bass wants is to make a success of her new business in Harbor Falls. This Manhattan transplant really wants to make it big in the small southern town. Forget New York, she is starting over small with her chocolate shop, Bittersweets, and setting out to impress the locals. Start small, think big, is her motto. What she doesn’t share is that chocolate runs in her veins, or that she has recently inherited her grandmother’s famous chocolate business—Chocolates by Jeaneva. This time she is doing things on her own terms, without help or influence from family. Bittersweets is her baby and hers alone. It’s time to prove herself.

All is fine until Jillian smacks straight into Scott outside of her shop, and he takes a whiff of her Belgian truffle… What follows is a flurry of spontaneous sexy encounters, a scandal, a couple of untruths, and a carefully orchestrated reunion by Suzie Hart guaranteed to result in no sweeter match than the one between Scott and Jillian.

Whether love comes with chocolate truffles, syrups, creams, or covered in sprinkles, this humorous and quirky story of dueling chocolatiers might leave you craving chocolate (and more!), all the while begging the question, “Is there anything better than chocolate?” 

When Jasmine Walker returns to Harbor Falls after a fifteen-year absence—she expects to tie up some legalities of a will and head back to her home in Atlanta that same day. What she doesn’t expect is for her troubled teenage past to collide with her well-planned, professional future.

When Ms. Leinie Harbor Crockett dies and leaves something for Jasmine Walker in her will, Jasmine returns to Harbor Falls to meet with the attorney of the estate and learns she has inherited the contents of a safety deposit box. A letter explains Ms. Leinie’s wishes and the stipulations around Jasmine’s inheritance—stipulations and requests that Jasmine may not be able to fulfill. Ms. Leinie’s wishes do not align with Jasmine’s busy life in Atlanta, nor does running into her old high school boyfriend, Jack Ackerman.

The last person Jack expects to see at the bank that day is Jasmine Walker—but once he does, he knows he is not going to let her leave without a conversation. Fifteen years fell away in a heartbeat, and he needs to understand why she left Harbor Falls in the first place. Jasmine’s confessions leave him confused and angry but he refuses to believe she no longer has feelings for him. When Jack learns his inheritance is intertwined with Jasmine’s, things suddenly become clearer.

With her passing, is Ms. Leinie orchestrating a star crossed reunion from the grave, bringing two young lovers back together after fifteen lonely years of hurt, secrets, and misunderstandings?

High tea or sweet tea? As long as there are scones it doesn’t matter. In fact, Suzie’s cousin Sydney Hart, owner of Sydney’s Sugar High Bakery, makes the best damned scones east of the Mississippi and south of the Mason Dixon, and there is an article in Southern’s Best magazine to prove it. All is well and life is good, until a mysterious stranger comes to town, stalking Sydney’s scones, and attempting to romance her out of her famous recipe.

Stone Kellerman isn’t above romancing the scone recipe out of Ms. Sydney Hart. Although he admits he finds the woman attractive, and she appeals to him on a certain level, her scone recipe is what he is after. Her Double Orange Scone of Sinful Decadent Desire is among the best he has ever tasted. No wonder she stole the Best Scones of the South title from him. Stone’s Scones of Atlanta had heralded that title for several years.

But hanging around her bakery shifts his priority from recipe to the baker. He is intrigued with the lovely pastry chef and finds himself tangled in his own plot to finagle her winning recipe from her.

Will Stone romance Sydney out of more than her scone recipe? Read Chase My Heart and laugh your way through this quirky tale of pastries and falling in love.