The first time they met, his dog trashed her car.
The second time they met, she set fire to her bathroom.
The third time they met, they fell in love.
Annie Galloway isn't looking to fall in love again. Sam Butler doesn't want a home and family of his own.
Too bad fate has other plans . . .
A SOFT PLACE TO FALL is a 100,000 word contemporary romance, previously published by Berkley Books.
From Booklist
It's been two years since Annie Galloway's husband died, and she is finally putting her life back together, even though she stays in Shelter Rock Cove, Maine. Annie has never lived anywhere else, and her life is tied to the small community, which is a blessing and a curse. Her mother-in-law took her in at sixteen when her parents died, and she feels grateful for her love, but her husband was not the saint that everyone thinks he was. When she meets Sam Butler, a Manhattan investment broker hiding out in the small town and reevaluating his life, they instantly connect, but some townspeople are suspicious of the newcomer and his relationship with Annie. Sam and Annie do keep secrets from each other, hoping to keep their newfound love separate from the past, but prying neighbors may tear them apart. Once again Bretton creates a tender love story about two people who, when they find something special, will go to any length to keep it. Patty Engelmann
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
The first time they met, his dog trashed her car.
The second time they met, she set fire to her bathroom.
The third time they met, they fell in love.
Annie Galloway isn't looking to fall in love again. Sam Butler doesn't want a home and family of his own.
Too bad fate has other plans . . .
A SOFT PLACE TO FALL is a 100,000 word contemporary romance, previously published by Berkley Books.
From Booklist
It's been two years since Annie Galloway's husband died, and she is finally putting her life back together, even though she stays in Shelter Rock Cove, Maine. Annie has never lived anywhere else, and her life is tied to the small community, which is a blessing and a curse. Her mother-in-law took her in at sixteen when her parents died, and she feels grateful for her love, but her husband was not the saint that everyone thinks he was. When she meets Sam Butler, a Manhattan investment broker hiding out in the small town and reevaluating his life, they instantly connect, but some townspeople are suspicious of the newcomer and his relationship with Annie. Sam and Annie do keep secrets from each other, hoping to keep their newfound love separate from the past, but prying neighbors may tear them apart. Once again Bretton creates a tender love story about two people who, when they find something special, will go to any length to keep it. Patty Engelmann
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Now not all Halloweens go off completely as you originally plan them to. I would guess it probably has something to do with the whole spooky ghost thing or maybe it’s just the perfect time for crazy, silly things to just happen, I don’t know. What I do know is that for us “The Great Pumpkin Incident” (we tend to name our great catastrophes, it gives them a nice kind of ring) made us both swear off anything to do with all things pumpkin. Pumpkin pie, pumpkin cake, pumpkin carving, even pumpkin seeds! At least for a good 10 years or so.Anyway the whole story all started one October after we had been together for a year or two. Oh, you know how it goes, punch drunk in love, willing to try anything, crazy little weime pup whose greatest joy in the world is to see just how much fun and destruction one little pup-pup can get herself into. Your typical everyday combo. This time our crazy idea of fun was to carve a pumpkin. Now mind you, we never do anything simple (don’t ask me why, guess that’s why Bella thinks we are so silly), we had decided that since it was one of our first Halloweens and we had this nut-head little wacky weime, why not carve a whole bunch of pumpkins. AT THE SAME TIME! Yeah, what a great idea, why just carve one simple little pumpkin when you can carve five medium size pumpkins even though neither one of us had ever carved just one. Yeah, great idea, brilliant, hey we were young, stupid and had a weimerenar, give us break.So, we picked out our pumpkins with weime in toe and everything went pretty smoothly and you know we were thinking, “Man, this is going to great.” Well, we get our pumpkins home, spread newspaper all over our largest drafting table, give Bella a treat, grab some knives and get to carving. Now, you may already know by now but carving a bunch of pumpkins sounds like a whole lot of fun late the night before when you come up with the idea at 4am, but it’s a whole other thing when you’ve got the five pumpkins staring you in the face. It suddenly becomes this sticky, smelly, yucky-ucky orange horror movie seen, not to mention the fact that the treat didn’t entertain the weime. Yes, that’s right folks, we were sticky, sticking to newpaper, the table, floor, each other, the house was starting to smell, well, like pumpkin that is and it was everywhere, then the little purple nose decides she wants to help. I can’t remember how it all happen or even how exactly it all started but I think the true craziness began when Scott placing his sticky knife down on the table, slumped down in a chair, that’s when Bella grabbed an open pumpkin and took off running. Now it’s bad enough to try and catch a crazy weime when she has something normal that you want from her, but to try and catch a weime with a cut open, messy full of yucky stuff pumpkin in her mouth just adds a whole new meaning to the “Catch me if you can game”. So off she went, pumpkin in mouth (her nose now orange with pumpkin yuck going everywhere), we both screaming, running after her and slipping in the wake of her mess. Now Remember, Bella was a young pup of only two and faster than a whip and it doesn’t help out that our house is a 1920’s bungalow with every room connecting to the next so it’s one big circle. Try catching a crazy pup when there’s no way to trap the little thief. Just so you get a good picture of the dog and her pumpkin, picture this; little Miss. Bella running and leaping with legs in every direction and pumpkin stuff flying everywhere. We both gave chase (and yes, we know NOW!, the last thing you should do), Bella with her happy trot, her silly humans in pursuit sticking and sliding into everything. So this is where she gets too smart for our own damn good, as she circled back around to the room with the other pumpkins, us hot on her tail, she flings the pumpkin in her month sending it smashing into wall, turns quickly and jumps up on the drafting table with the other pumpkins.Suffice to say, she ended up getting three of the pumpkins (yes, she’s that fast), knocked everything off the table, got pumpkin guts throughout the entire house and on every square inch of everything we owned at the time. All I can say is that at times like that all you can do is start laughing with your dog.

...plus it was her birthday. I had to go to the commencement, and I wanted to get a sense of what the place was like, a long time since I had been up there. (Actually went inside that Esso Club place.) Well, it's definitely one of those 'The more things change, the more they stay the same' kind of stories. I believe I read that Sara was one of the most outstanding undergraduates that Clemson ever had, or maybe it was that she WAS the best. OK, maybe that last part was a bit over the top, but she surely was a good student, had great grades. Of course, I tried to get her to go to USC way back when, but would she listen to her uncle? No way! And then we had this sort of sword-crossing a couple of times over the football games etc. But blood has got to be a bit thicker than water I guess...but it would be good for all you tiger fans to know your blood is OUR school's color!Never mind all that. The commencement at Littlejohn was real fine, and it was a stunningly beautiful day. Plenty of tasty food and about 1000 gallons of beer back at her place (I helped bring it in), then rousing games of corn-bag toss (can we use that term for the game? Please?), with all the friends and the two roomates, also graduating, plus their families. Then I had to get back to to Columbia as USC's graduation was the following morning. Well, I'm here to tell you that leaving the party with her Mom and Dad was a bit emotional,and there wer some sniffs and tears. Tears of happiness, tinged a bit with the melancholy of watching too much happen too quickly with our loved ones' lives. I thought Sara would always be a horrible little brat, but now she's turned out to be a foxy babe, smart and imaginative. She's a pistol, a hammer! I'm proud to have her as my sweet niece., and would do anything for her. Sara, if you are reading this, you might like to know that I'm getting sort of teary-eyed putting it all down. (I know she wants me to write 'Go TIGERS' somewhere here. Don't know if I could do that. )OK, just this one time, though, GO TIGERS! (Ohygod, that makes TWICE!)Good luck Sara, I love you. Your uncle, JB