She came home looking for answers. Falling for Mercy Bend's most notorious playboy was never part of the plan.

Thirteen years ago, Mara Quinn left the small Tennessee town of Mercy Bend carrying the guilt of the last words she spoke to her father before a devastating flood took his life.

Now a successful structural engineer in Nashville, Mara returns after storm damage threatens Quinn House, her family's historic riverfront inn. Her plan is simple: stabilize the property, settle the finances, and leave town again.

Then she discovers a survey marker that doesn't match the official records.

Old maps have been changed. Someone breaks into Quinn House. Restoration equipment is deliberately sabotaged. And evidence hidden by Mara's father suggests the flood that killed him may have concealed a secret powerful people were determined to bury.

The last person Mara should trust is Cal Mercer.

Mercy Bend's favorite bad decision has spent years earning his reputation as a charming bachelor who knows how to get close to women without ever promising to stay. He's also a skilled swift-water rescue expert-and the son of the powerful developer whose family may be connected to the mystery surrounding Mara's father's death.

Working together was supposed to be temporary.

Falling for each other wasn't supposed to happen at all.

But beneath Cal's easy charm is a man struggling to become someone capable of staying when love gets difficult, while beneath Mara's fierce independence is a woman who has spent thirteen years believing that needing someone gives them the power to destroy her.

As buried evidence, family secrets, sabotage, and old betrayals surface, their growing relationship will demand something neither of them has been good at giving:

The whole truth.

Cry Me a River, Playboy is an emotional small-town romantic suspense novel about a guarded heroine searching for the truth, a reformed playboy learning that honesty requires more than avoiding lies, and two people discovering that trust isn't about being fearless-it's about what you choose when being vulnerable finally costs something.