Love's Sweetest Revenge

We never know when a minor change in our daily routine will alter the course of our lives. Thirty-something Liz Bertelli had other things on her mind that fateful day she ventured from her usual walking path into New York State's lush forest. Her husband had left for a plaything in her twenties and it had been far too long since the award-winning artist had picked up a paintbrush. Liz doesn't see the mother bear with cubs until it is too late. When the bear charges, she runs in blind panic, falling and striking her head against an old stone wall, knocking herself unconscious. Bruised, but relieved to awaken in this world with the bear gone, Liz spots something glittering in the wall. She tugs at it, releasing an old silver locket and the saga of forbidden love it contains. Uncovering the locket's secrets takes Liz and best friend Rosa Ramirez (a young widow) to a castle (the Castillo de San Marcos) in the romantic city of St. Augustine, Florida. More clues bring the friends to handsome Latino brothers, Carlos and Jack Martín. Sparks fly between Liz and Carlos, who has worked for the President and flown aboard Air Force One. Jack, a rugged Army hero, roars into Rosa's life on a gleaming Harley-Davidson motorcycle. But can Liz, embittered by her husband's betrayal, and Rosa grieving her husband's untimely passing, respond to love's overtures? Answers come on a snowy Christmas day, when an arduous trek through the frigid forest, leads to another surprise.