Merlin's Magic? — Linda Palmer

Raised by a elderly grandmother and spinster aunts after the death of her mom, Aimee Kendall has lived a sheltered life. Now that everyone she loves has died, she is on her own and trying to get on with her life. Step one of that process is detaching herself emotionally so that she'll never again experience the pain of losing a loved one. Step two is resisting the efforts of her widowed landlady to annihilate step one.

Senior citizen Rose Reinhardt is as lonely as her renter and can't understand why Aimee resists all her offers of friendship and keeps to herself. Enter Mick Doonan, Rose's in-your-face great-nephew, there for Rose's birthday. From the moment Aimee and Mick clash, she is drawn to him and can't understand why. He's loud; he's nosy; he's bossy. He's also gorgeous in a rough edges sort of way, and, she quickly realizes, totally irresistible. Does she dare lower the emotional barriers that protect her heart? Or should she simply wait for Mick to barge right through them?