Arbor Vitae — Susan X. Meagher

Even when you're not expecting it, love can find you. The flames of passion can ignite so quickly that all of the impediments to love can seem immaterial. They're not. Overcoming differences in age, sexual orientation, social status and familial expectations is daunting, but if it's right, love will find a way.

Abby Graham is uncommonly lovely, happy and content with her life, but when she finds herself a widow just a week before her 40th birthday, the secure world that she thought was permanent is suddenly on very shaky ground. Struggling to work through her grief, she always puts her children's needs first, leaving little time for herself.

Five years later her youngest child leaves for college and Abby decides to kick start a new lease on life by returning to the dating scene, as well as transforming the backyard of her home into an oasis of beauty and tranquility.

She hires Clancy O'Connor, a high-spirited young landscape architect who is trying to build a business and hopes to get recommendations from Abby's upper-class social circle. Clancy develops a serious crush on the beautiful widow before their first meeting is finished. It's a recipe for heartache; even though Abby seems remarkably comfortable with Clancy's lesbianism, Clancy is unable to imagine that Abby would be willing to take the leap given the differences in their age, class, wealth and lifestyles.

As Abby reveals more of herself to Clancy during their many hours of consultation, the connection between them begins to spark. After an evening of small intimacies and shared dreams, the women can no longer fight their mutual desire. Although Abby has her doubts about the future, she and Clancy embark on a torrid love affair…but all too soon a threat develops that could destroy the tentative bond that holds them together.