Coyote Bend

A small-town desert romance with heat, humor, and a slow burn that doesn’t quit.

When Scout Adler’s car dies on a forgotten stretch of desert highway, she figures it’s cosmic confirmation she should’ve stayed gone. Instead, she limps into Coyote Bend — a sun-baked town full of nosy strangers, cold beer, hotter pavement, and the one auto shop that shouldn’t have room for her but somehow does.

Holt Ward is all silence and discipline, a mechanic who prefers engines to people and keeps his past locked up tighter than the shop safe. He’s not looking for company. He’s definitely not looking for the talkative, stubborn woman who shows up sweating and hopeful and asking for a place to breathe.

Working side by side in the heat, Scout learns the truth: Holt notices everything. The way she flinches at slammed doors. The way she forgets to eat when the shop gets busy. The way she looks at him like she’s waiting for him to ruin it.

And maybe that scares him more than the past he’s still learning to walk on.

But Coyote Bend runs on loyalty, gossip, and the kind of friendships that sneak up on you. Between Finn’s relentless laughter, Sunny’s unsolicited advice, and nights spent sharing a roof with the quietest man she’s ever met, Scout starts to wonder if this dusty nowhere town might be the first place she finally stops running.

Her past isn’t done with her. But neither is Holt.

And the desert has a way of burning away everything that isn’t real.