Borrowed Time

Third in the FATED LOVES collection from USA-Today bestselling author Edie Claire.

You can't run away from your past. But in some cases, it's worth a try.

Sarah Landers' parents were killed in a plane crash when she was seventeen; her only sister committed suicide days after. Now, nearly a decade later, Sarah assures everyone that she is perfectly fine. Never mind her quiet aloofness, her intensity at work, her seeming neglect of any social life. Only Sarah knows the whole story. Only she is aware of the dark memories that plague her with guilt -- of the fear of discovery that paralyzes her soul.

When an enigmatic illness forces the normally self-sufficient Sarah to depend on someone, namely the charming do-gooder of a neighbor, Adam, whom she has been trying desperately to avoid -- her carefully built cocoon begins to crumble. Her family's home in Alabama, left vacant since the tragedy, still holds the grim evidence of her nightmares and is slated for imminent demolition. With the horror of her past swiftly catching up to her, Sarah's malady begins to look less like a catastrophe and more like her only way out.

But the (rather irreverent) reverend Adam Carmassi refuses to let Sarah go. Not when she is the first woman who has ever truly touched his heart, and not when he is so certain he can help her. With the end of Sarah's life looming in more ways than one, Adam wages a desperate campaign to convince her that no matter what tortured secrets she insists on hiding, her life is worth living -- and their chance of a future together, however slim, is a dream worth fighting for.