The Last Picture in Larkspur

Her grandfather left her a drive-in under the desert sky. In 6 weeks, a developer wants to pave it into a parking lot, and the man sent to survey the lot for demolition just walked back into the one town he swore he'd never need again.

Odie Vance runs 2 things in Larkspur, New Mexico: her late grandfather's drive-in theater and the neon-sign shop next door. She's kept both running alone since he died, careful not to let a single string light burn out on her watch. Then an offer letter shows up from Cimarron Ridge Development, with a number on it and a hearing date 6 weeks out, and the architect they send to survey the lot turns out to be someone who grew up 2 towns over, with his own reasons for wanting the desert to keep something, for once.

Rafael "Rafe" Cordova has spent his career building things meant to last. He didn't expect the job to send him back to a stretch of high desert that already took something from his family once. He didn't expect the owner of the lot he's supposed to help clear to be someone worth staying for.

Neither of them planned on this. Neither of them can walk away from it either.

What readers can expect

• A small-town setting built around a drive-in movie theater and a neon-sign shop, not another coastal inn
• Dual point of view, alternating chapters
• Clean, closed-door romance with a small-town cast and a deadline neither of them chose
• A hero with his own stake in what's being saved
• Book 1 of 3 in the Larkspur Small-Town Romance Series

If you love a small town worth staying in, a hero who shows up when it counts, and a love story with real stakes attached to real ground, start with The Last Picture in Larkspur.