Distant Shores

Note: Distant Shores by Lane O'Neil is book 3 in the Stapled Magnolias series, but it can be read as a standalone.On the sun-warmed shores of coastal Alabama, two strangers on parallel paths find themselves in the unlikeliest of summer sanctuaries: an empty house, a shared responsibility, and a chance to reach for something more.Ireland Sewell doesn't have time for a sunshine man with a chin dimple and kind eyes-not when she's barely holding her life together.After uprooting everything to move her dad into a memory care facility on the Gulf Coast, she's sleeping on borrowed couches and taking any job she can get while trying to outpace the grief she can't quite name. Her world has lost color and shrunk to fit inside Zinnia House, which she thinks she's fine with, until a cinnamon-roll paramedic with a superhero jawline and a purple crutch steps into her life and threatens the status quo.On medical leave after a rescue gone wrong, Adair Jacks has an ankle that won't heal and a heart that never quite learned how to rest. When his pops moves into Zinnia House, he follows, intent on being the glue his family needs. The last thing he expects is to end up rooming with an intense dance teacher with indigo blue eyes who makes him feel something he hasn't felt in a long time: wanted.Thrown together in a last-ditch roommate arrangement, Ireland and Adair navigate new dynamics, caregiving, and slow, stolen moments that build a tender connection neither of them knew how badly they needed.But with fragile family ties and a ticking clock on their summer living situation, their growing bond is tested when the real world comes calling.Distant Shores is a slow-burn contemporary romance featuring a black-cat-energy dance teacher, a green-flag paramedic with a crochet habit, and all the charm of found family, forced proximity, and beachside healing. Can two people who are used to living for everyone else finally choose themselves… and each other?