Denise Devine

**These stories were previously published in Kiss or Kill Under the Northern Lights. They are a collection of short stories written by members of Northern Lights Writers, a Minnesota Chapter of RWA.

Jenny Landon doesn't believe in happy endings... The tragic death of her husband has convinced her that dreams don't last and she never wants to risk losing her happiness-or her heart ever again. She's totally unprepared to fall in love a second time, but when she meets Luke McCarran at her sister's engagement party, his ability to understand her pain suggests he isn't like other men. Can she bury the past and learn to love again? Luke McCarran believes...

Stephanie Jones' relationship with her boyfriend is dead in the water. Literally... Jock Tanner has stood up Stephanie for the last time. She's had it with their on-again, off-again relationship and plans to end it permanently. That is, if he'd just answer his darn phone! Convinced he's avoiding her, she heads to his cabin cruiser on the marina to confront him and finds him there, but he's not talking. He has a knife stuck in his chest. A large...

Annika Nilsen is a small-town girl with big-city dreams… At twenty-eight, she's stuck in her hometown of West Loon Bay, Minnesota, population 397, with no boyfriend, no money, and no future. Life is boring and predictable until her best friend convinces her to take a road trip out west to see what they're missing. Everything is going according to the plan until her brother suddenly shows up with his bandmate, Alexander Lange. Annika's attraction...

Is it possible to find true love through a message in a bottle? Spending a week on a Caribbean island with the members of the Romantic Hearts Book Club is like a dream come true for Lisa Kaye. On their last night, each woman writes a personal message to her "dream hero," stuffs it in a bottle and tosses it out to sea. Lisa's real dreams crash, however, when she returns home and loses not only her job but her boyfriend in the same day. Determined to...

Guess who's coming to dinner? Sophie Lillie is looking forward to spending the holidays in Hawaii with her family on their annual Christmas cruise. It won't be the same this year, however, without her mother. Maggie's death has drawn the family closer together, but when Sophie's father shows up with his new fiancée, their fragile reunion is torn apart. Sophie turns to an unlikely stranger for comfort, a man who is dealing with a betrayal of his own......

Katie McGowan is desperate to make it home for Christmas. Since the death of her husband in a snowmobile accident two years ago, her family has filled the void left by Josh's passing. Returning home from a business trip on December 23rd, Katie finds herself trapped by a blizzard in Alexandria, Minnesota. Stranded travelers have filled the hotels, leaving her no choice but to take an executive suite in the same resort where Josh died. Ryan Scott intends...