Controlled Burn

By Lysandra Vail

She says everything except what she means. He never asks for anything.

Josie Hale runs the front of two businesses and has a joke for every silence. Wes Okafor, captain of Station 4, has not raised his voice in eleven years on the department and has never once asked anyone for help. They have been best friends for ten of those years, and neither of them has said a word about it.

Then the county votes 4 to 3 to fold the firehouse into Alpena's unless Juniper Harbor raises $240,000 by Labor Day. Josie volunteers the town for a summer of benefit nights before Wes can stop her, and the two of them end up co-chairing the whole thing. They make a pact at her kitchen table: nothing will change between them this summer. The loser of the bet buys the other a boat.

But the lake is warm, the nights are long, and a bonfire makes a very bad place to keep a promise. Josie has rules for what comes next. Wes has an offer he has told no one about. And the whole town is watching the scoreboard.
A slow-burn, small-town, friends-to-lovers romance. Book Two of the Juniper Harbor series, and a story that stands on its own.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0HP27FFW3
• ISBN13: 9798164143046
• Release Date: October 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 232 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"