Imagine coming into the town pub with my crew, dirty and exhausted, only to walk right into my biggest regret. The twin sister of my lost best friend and the one who got away. I haven’t seen Violette Taylor in years but I haven’t forgotten her either.
I used to be Rowan to her. Now, I’m just King, the guy who broke her heart, but not for the reasons she thinks.
Violette is back in town for good, she’s a single mom and a nurse in the burn unit I accidentally wind up in.
Can you call that fate? Maybe, if she wasn’t doing her best to stay far away from anyone who reminded her of her past, especially a career hotshot like me. But I know something she doesn’t; life rarely offers second chances. So, if this is my chance to finally make things right, I’m taking it.
When I closed the final page of Protect, my chest felt both raw and full, with longing, with hope, with the ache of second chances earned hard. This isn’t just a reunion romance; it’s a vivid emotional journey that burned through grief and lit a path toward healing.
Violette has built her life around two things: caring for her daughter Hollie and keeping her heart locked down tight. Years ago, she and Rowan shared a love that felt limitless. Their love was young, innocent, and full of so much potential, until tragedy struck, taking her twin brother and shattering everything between them. Rowan left. And Violette learned to survive without him.
Now, Rowan’s back. Not as the reckless boy she remembers, but as a man, burned, scarred, and carrying the weight of too many mistakes. Fate forces them together when he ends up in the very burn unit where she works. The air between them is thick with everything unsaid. It’s tense and fragile at the same time, filled with unspoken regret and unresolved love. She’s a nurse and single mom, fiercely protective of her heart as well as her daughter’s; he’s a wildland “hotshot” firefighter internally fighting guilt, memories, and remorse.
“For the last ten years, your face is the face I see. No matter who I’m with, no matter who I meet. When I fell in that ash pit, the last face that flashed through my mind was yours.”
From that moment on, you just knew it wasn’t going to be an easy read.
And it wasn’t.
“I never stopped loving you, Violette. I just didn’t know if I deserved to.”
Their past bleeds into the present, with memories of stolen kisses in the back of his truck, the night her brother and his best friend died, the years of silence that broke both of their hearts. But Rowan doesn’t push her. He shows up, for Violette, for little Hollie, and for himself. There’s something poignant and breathtaking about the way he slips into their lives quietly, letting Violette set the pace, even when every part of his being aches to close the difference. He doesn’t demand her forgiveness, he just earns it.
“And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you rarely get second changes in life, so if this is the universe giving me one, I’m taking it.”
Paisley Hope doesn’t sugarcoat the healing process. There’s therapy. There are setbacks. There are moments when it feels like too much to overcome. But woven through the grief and guilt is a fierce, unconditional love, between Rowan and Violette, between mother and daughter, between the family they’ve chosen.
“You can’t protect someone by leaving them. You protect them by staying, even when it’s hard.”
By the end, my heart was both shattered and whole. This is a second-chance romance that doesn’t just flirt with redemption, it dives straight in, daring you to believe that some loves are worth every scar. If you’re drawn to stories of second chances that don’t gloss over trauma, but grow from it, this one will stay in your chest long after the last page.
“The way I feel about you isn’t just love, it’s obsession. Every part of you is mine.”