Love grows wild, p.1
Love Grows Wild, page 1
Praise for Winter Renshaw
“Winter Renshaw crafts the best romances! She always delivers it all—angst, emotion, and humor. Her books are a true delight.”
—Adriana Locke, USA Today bestselling author
“Passion. Drama. Angst. Renshaw nails the romance trifecta with her perfectly paced office love affair.”
—Deanna Roy, USA Today bestselling romance author of the Forever Series
“If you’re looking for stories that are thought provoking, wildly sexy, and unputdownable, you’ll never be disappointed with Winter Renshaw!”
—Jenika Snow, USA Today bestselling author
“The queen of contemporary angst knows how to curl toes while breaking hearts! A perfect romance for two imperfect lovers!”
—Sosie Frost, Wall Street Journal bestselling author
Other Titles by Winter Renshaw
The Never Series
Never Kiss a Stranger
Never Is a Promise
Never Say Never
Bitter Rivals
The Arrogant Series
Arrogant Bastard
Arrogant Master
Arrogant Playboy
The Rixton Falls Series
Royal
Bachelor
Filthy
The Amato Brothers Series
Heartless
Reckless
Priceless (a Rixton Falls crossover)
The P.S. Series
P.S. I Hate You
P.S. I Miss You
P.S. I Dare You
The Montgomery Brothers Duet
Dark Paradise
Dark Promises
The Paper Cuts Series
Hate Mail
Yours Cruelly
Dear Stranger
Stand-Alones
Single Dad Next Door
Cold Hearted
The Perfect Illusion
Country Nights
Absinthe
The Rebound
Love and Other Lies
The Executive
Pricked
For Lila, Forever
The Marriage Pact
Hate the Game
The Cruelest Stranger
The Best Man
Trillion
Enemy Dearest
The Match
Whiskey Moon
The Dirty Truth
Love and Kerosene
You or Someone Like You
Fake-ish
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Otherwise, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2026 by Nom de Plume LLC
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake, Seattle
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ISBN-13: 9781662523731 (paperback)
ISBN-13: 9781662523724 (digital)
Cover design by Eileen Carey
Cover image: © Regina Wamba of MaeIDesign.com
To the farmer who watered me and put me in the sun so I could bloom again.
Contents
Prologue: Wren
1: Hunter
2: Wren
3: Hunter
4: Wren
5: Hunter
6: Wren
7: Hunter
8: Wren
9: Hunter
10: Wren
11: Hunter
12: Wren
13: Hunter
14: Wren
15: Hunter
16: Wren
17: Hunter
18: Wren
19: Hunter
20: Wren
21: Hunter
22: Wren
23: Hunter
24: Wren
25: Hunter
26: Wren
27: Hunter
28: Wren
29: Hunter
30: Wren
31: Hunter
32: Wren
33: Hunter
34: Wren
35: Hunter
36: Wren
37: Hunter
38: Wren
39: Hunter
40: Wren
41: Hunter
42: Wren
43: Hunter
44: Wren
45: Hunter
46: Wren
47: Hunter
48: Wren
49: Hunter
50: Wren
51: Hunter
52: Wren
53: Hunter
54: Wren
55: Hunter
56: Wren
57: Hunter
58: Wren
59: Hunter
60: Wren
61: Hunter
62: Wren
63: Hunter
64: Wren
Epilogue: Wren
About the Author
Prologue
Wren
“You sure you want to do this?” My best friend, Reese, frowns from my doorway. She comes bearing cardboard boxes, moving tape, Sharpies, and a wistful expression on her face.
“It’s not optional.” I sip my iced chai and scan the lofty downtown Des Moines condo my son and I have called home for the last four years. Twenty years ago, I left my hometown of Colton Valley—a blink-and-you-miss-it Iowa farming town, got a generic college degree, and somehow along the way stumbled into a career as a romance novelist.
Everything was going well . . . until life happened.
Turns out it’s impossible to write—or at least write well—when your personal life goes up in flames. One of the worst feelings in the world is having a story to tell that refuses to come out. The flashing cursor on a blank white page is a visual that haunts my dreams on a nightly basis.
“You’re sure you’re not doing this because of he-who-shall-not-be-named?” Reese sighs. “It’s just that everything is so fresh, and this decision seems so . . . sudden. I just hope you’re doing it for the right reasons and it’s not some knee-jerk impulse reaction. Don’t let that asshole run you out of the city you love.”
“I’m not running from anything—or anyone.” I tuck the flaps on a cardboard box. “And you can say Nick’s name. It’s not forbidden. He doesn’t get to leave me at the altar and still wield that much power over me.”
Reese sits straighter, satisfied with my answer. While it’s been six months since Nick left me the morning of our wedding day, and the aftershocks of that rug-pull are still shaky, the love is gone.
I don’t miss him.
I don’t wish things had been different.
I just wish I could write again.
I have overdue contracts, and I feel like I’m letting everyone down. My die-hard readers. My agent. My editor. Myself. My son and the life I was building for us . . .
Two months ago, Atticus found me sobbing over my laptop in the middle of the night. He brought me a blanket, his beloved teddy bear, and a glass of water, and then he scampered off to grab his favorite book, telling me I needed some inspiration.
Inspiration was exactly what I needed, just not from between the pages of Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site.
“I can’t live here without you.” She sets the boxes on the dining room table and sinks into a chair, half pouting.
“Then come with me. It’s only forty minutes away,” I say. “It’s a cute little postcard town. You’d love it.”
“I’d hate it,” she counters.
“True. But you hated sushi until I made you try it,” I remind her. “Now it’s your favorite.”
The day I left for college, I vowed to myself I’d never move back home. Not that there’s anything wrong with that quaint little Hallmark town. But for me, it wasn’t about that. Leaving home meant pushing myself out of my comfort zone and into the unknown. I was convinced that would be where my life would truly begin. And it did . . . until it started to feel like it was ending too.
Reese uncaps a black Sharpie and takes a whiff, grimacing. “Why do I both hate and love this smell? Make it make sense.”
I tape a box of paperback books and label it office.
“I just can’t picture you living on an acreage. In a farmhouse. You’ve been a city girl ever since I’ve known you. You have this modern industrial loft with these huge ceilings. You eat at the best restaurants. You travel all the time, and you’re ten minutes from the airport. And Atticus goes to that cool preschool over on Walnut. I bet they don’t have schools like that in Colton Valley. And how many restaurants do they have? One? Two?”
I chuckle. “Four, actually. Five, if you count the bar that serves frozen pizza by the slice. I’ve been wanting to learn how to cook more anyway. And their elementary school is one of the best in the state, believe it or not. Atticus is really excited for kindergarten this fall. Plus, my mom works there, so he’ll get to see his grandma every day.”
“Good for Atticus. But you’re going to hate it, and you’re going to be calling me up asking me to pack you up aga in, and I’m just going to say I told you so.”
“Just wait until you see the property. Cute little white farmhouse. Wraparound porch. Tree-lined driveway. Room for a food garden. The yard backs up to the river, and there’s even a little gazebo. Oh, and there’s a red barn with a little corral. I was thinking of getting one of those adorable mini cows—or maybe a pony for Atticus? And a dog. I should get a big dog.”
She pinches the bridge of her nose. “I love your enthusiasm, but as your oldest and longest friend, I’d like to remind you that you’ve never kept a single houseplant or goldfish alive, so it worries me to hear you talk so casually about growing your own food and raising large animals.”
I snort. She’s not wrong, but I think this could be good for me.
I need to refocus.
I need to get out of my funk.
I need a change of scenery.
I need nature and purpose and to be closer to family—to my roots.
I need inspiration . . .
My god, do I need inspiration.
“I’m excited for this new chapter,” I tell her. I don’t want to devote more energy to Nick than necessary, and while I’m not angry at him anymore—he personally did me a favor—I’m still struggling to forgive him for the giant hole he left in my son’s heart. That’s what hurts the most. He promised to raise and love Atticus like his own—same as what my stepdad, Will, did with me. Nick and Atti were inseparable—until Nick’s ex-girlfriend reached out to him the morning of our wedding, and that was all it took. “Atticus has had a hard year, and so have I. I miss seeing him smile. I miss writing. And I need to see my family more often. This place is beautiful, Reese. Once you see it, you’ll understand why I couldn’t pass it up. Here. I have pictures.”
I pull out my phone and open one of the first images my mom sent me—the little white two-story house nestled among thick green trees under a blanket of clear blue sky. It’s the perfect size for the two of us, and with all that space, Atti can actually touch grass instead of growing up in a concrete jungle.
Reese studies the image before letting out a long breath, her head cocked and her eyes softening as she hands my phone back.
“It’s cute,” she says. “But I worry you’re romanticizing it.”
“I’m a romance author. I romanticize everything. It’s kind of what I do . . .”
“Okay, fair.” She uncurls her shoulders. “But I also have another concern that you probably haven’t even thought about.”
I sniff a laugh. “What’s that?”
“Pretty sure they don’t have food delivery in Colton Valley.”
She’s not wrong. And it’s a valid concern, given my robust DoorDash reliance. But it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make if it means being able to write again.
“All razzing aside, I’m happy for you,” she adds, leaning close to wrap her arms around me. She squeezes me longer and tighter than she ever has, and I breathe her in: a mix of her musky vanilla perfume and the comfort of best friendship. “If anyone can jump without looking and land on their feet, it’s you.”
Last month, when I was crying on the phone to my mother about my writer’s block and feeling stuck in life, she proposed the idea of me moving back to my hometown, mentioning there was some man they knew who was thinking about selling his forty-acre farmhouse plot by the river.
After she told me the price—which was a fraction of what I paid for my downtown loft—and rattled off all the other reasons I should make this move, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, couldn’t stop envisioning spending endless days enveloped by the gorgeous landscape of this farmhouse retreat, slow mornings sipping coffee while watching deer graze in the meadow, writing next to open windows with gauzy curtains, curling up with a good book on the front porch swing, midday walks along the riverbanks under a warm sun, Atticus skipping happily by my side as birds chirp around us.
In the strangest way—one I still can’t explain—the moment I saw that photo, it instantly felt like home.
1
Hunter
The tractor hums beneath me like a living beast, all steel and muscle and diesel breath. I’ve been out here since before sunup, dropping blades into dirt that smells like home and every decision—good and bad—I’ve ever made. Autosteer’s doing most of the work, but I sit up straight, one hand on the armrest, the other on the throttle.
I’ve never been good at sitting still for too long.
I glance down at the monitor. Eighteen point three acres an hour. Not bad. If the rain holds off and nothing breaks, I might get this north section done by nightfall.
Sky’s a little darker than I’d like today, so I won’t hold my breath.
I take a swig of lukewarm coffee and scan the rolling hills of the horizon. The ladies at the coffee shop this morning were buzzing about some writer who grew up around here who’s now moving back. I didn’t catch her name, but they sure seemed excited. Based on all the stars in their eyes, a guy would’ve thought they were discussing a local celebrity. Can’t blame them, though. We don’t get much for excitement around here, so every little thing quickly becomes the talk of the town.
But an author? Don’t think we’ve ever had one of those before.
Can’t recall the last time I cracked a book. Had to have been my university days, but at forty-two, college was a lifetime ago.
My phone rings, and I take the call over my headset.
“Truitt,” I answer.
“That planter at the Everly farm’s acting up again.” The frustration in my farmhand’s voice tells me this is exactly what I didn’t want to happen today. If we’re lucky, we get ten good planting days a season. It’s the second half of April, and thanks to all the rain we’ve had this month and the time it took for the fields to dry out, today’s our first one.
Not ideal.
“You check the vac pressure?” I ask. I’ve got two full-time guys—Cal and Truitt, each about a decade younger than me. Solid guys who aren’t afraid of the long days and even longer nights that come with this kind of job. Not everyone’s fortunate enough to have a good right-hand man, but me? I’m lucky enough to have two.
“Yep.” Truitt sighs. “Called the mechanic too. Still waiting to hear back.”
I picture him out in the field, pacing and muttering to himself, likely more upset about disappointing me than having to fix a broken planter during planting season. Truitt’s work ethic is rivaled only by his people-pleasing tendencies—at least when it comes to me.
Over the past ten years, I’ve become his boss, his best friend, his mentor, and his big brother all rolled into one. Letting me down is always the last thing he wants to do, but no matter how many times I remind him that this is farming and things happen, he still gets worked up when things don’t go according to plan.
I’ve never seen the point in letting these kinds of situations get the best of me. Not when I have more important things to focus on—like running my operation and buying more land. My guys always joke that I might as well be married to the place, that I’ve never needed a woman because farming is the “love of my life.”
They’re not wrong. They just don’t have all the backstory, and it’s not worth my energy to give it to them either. It’s none of their business, and I don’t see the point in mucking around in the past anyway. Doesn’t change anything.
“And you checked all the seed tubes?” I ask.
“Sure did.” His voice is flat. It’s Friday. The last thing either of us wanted was to deal with a breakdown, but machines don’t give a damn what day of the week it is.
“And you bled the lines?”
“Of course.” Even in his frustration, Truitt’s still respectful.
Cal would’ve answered me with something like “Got any more stupid questions for me, boss?”
“All right. Give me a few. I’ll head that way. We’ll figure this out,” I assure Truitt before ending the call.
I bring my tractor to a stop, then kill the engine before climbing out and trudging to the edge of the field where my truck is parked.
I’m pulling onto the road a few minutes later when a black Audi SUV blazes past me in a trail of gravel dust. No sound other than the tires crunching on the rocks. Must be electric. Electric cars and luxury imports are a rare sight in Colton Valley and an even rarer sight out here in the middle of farm country, where the miles between towns and houses stretch on forever.
