Michelle Tschantre

Zach Fassino is a disability-discharged Army veteran; he still suffers some abnormal reactions to usual conditions. The last Afghani fire fight is still raw in his mind. Katherine is living under the pressurizing and controlling thumb of her mother, a situation her mother has constructed and placed on her youngest daughter with well concealed intentions. Katherine helps Zach back into a more social world, while he becomes her knight, freeing her from her mother's yoke of oppression.

Rich Borders, a single man doing his job, stops for a few minutes to help a woman stranded in the early morning on a lonely road. Rescued from the frigid night, Lindsey falls asleep in his cargo van, but not before making an impression on him. She was on the road because she works late at a road house, needing the temporary job to help make ends meet. He could not explain why she stayed in his mind, but she did. At a later time, when he is looking for temporary help in the office of his trucking company, Rich remembers her talking about her own abilities in that area and makes the call. As events occur, she becomes more and more immersed in the office and in his life, with her mother eventually joining the group as a driver. As events unfold it is discovered people may not be all they seem...

Ed Long resented being "used" by anyone, and when it happened again, he loaded his truck, and set out for his parent's distant home. Holed up for the evening, an ad in a local paper caught his eye and a day later he was working for Walter Short, owner of Precision Machine Specialties. A few days later, Ed's sharp eye caught the sudden change in Walt's appearance, and a fatal heart attack was averted. Walt's LA-based daughter, Sydney Short, was having her own bad day. Once again credit and recognition due her were usurped by a vice-president and there was nothing she could do about it. Worse, she got a call from Ed Long; her father had suffered a serious heart attack and would most likely need surgery. The call between Ed and Syd was tense, but when she arrived in Conyerville late at night, still nearly ten miles from her father's house, Ed Long met her, put her luggage into his truck, closed her door when she got in, and in the dark of night she rode away with a man she had never met. She asked for no ID and would later question her own sanity. Would her resentment over her professional treatment carry over against Ed, and would he stay around long enough to see that happen? How about that heart attack Walt Short had weathered; how would it change his life? And then there was the call to Syd from a major corporate player. Would she take the bait? And what does the IRS want anyway?

Ron Weston did something really dumb; job-seeking, he sent earnest money to a placement agency, discovering too late it was a bogus agency with no jobs. Meantime, Veronica "Roni" Easton owns a large multi-line car dealership and continues life after a bitter divorce and two children. She had been warned about entering the marriage, but wrote it off as sibling jealousy. They were right. Ron and Roni meet when he has to sell his worn ride to raise rent money. A second well-meaning but unfortunate choice has landed him a minor criminal record, but in a time of short staffing Roni hires him to work at the dealership. None of that explains why Ron was shot in the foot, or how Roni comes to find herself with her emotional barriers being softened. It doesn't explain how Ron regains his own professional dignity, but his taking a bullet for her does establish his growing level of love. Will his criminal record sink their love boat, and what about the resentment her siblings feel toward Roni after she ignores their advice and concern about her marriage? Can Ron and Roni heal the rift? And then, there are Ronda and Billy to consider, a true May and December couple.

Jim Madison never expected to own a thriving marina, but he does. Kendra Millen always expected to go to the junior college, with a desire to learn and grow, but she can't. With four siblings still at home, Kendra needs to bring in some income. Her parents had been raised in the "work hard" school of thought, but "work hard" was being automated and her parent's skills were left wanting. Suddenly facing a locked door and a lost job, she resorts to the temp job service and meets Jim Madison while doing some food server work at his marina's Open House event. There it was, her image in his mind, Kendra, nothing specific, but when he later needed a temp employee in a hurry, her name and face came up. That was meeting number two. By meeting three, when he hired her to go with him on a boat retrieval event, he realized how much he enjoyed seeing her again. He even talked to a friend about the decade of age difference and was assured by Jeff Banning, now married to Andrea nearly ten years Jeff's junior, the social beating Jim would take was worth the end result. Beyond the age issue, there was the question of child care for Jim Madison's niece who had suddenly arrived on his doorstep. Would Kendra believe a marriage proposal was about Jim loving her, or was it about obtaining full-time child care for Lily? Which would win out in her mind?

In Windmere Series, book one, "Laura's Big Win", the reader meets Laura Nessing and Ryan Williams, two people with deep emotional voids in their hearts. The common thread is the place called WINDMERE, a former private estate, maybe with some magic included, but certainly with dynamic relationships as things evolve between Laura and Ryan, each filling the void in the other's life, unsure about many things but sure in the growing love each has for the other. Many of the characters one meets in book one also play parts in subsequent releases, such as "Score One for Angela", and "Magnetic Love: When Opposites Attract".