Barefoot in the Sun

Zoe Tamarin is a flight risk...literally. In her early thirties, this hot air balloon pilot has yet to spend more than a few years in any one place, earning her the nickname of "the tumbleweed" by her far more stable friends. There's a reason for that, however...a reason that Zoe hasn't ever told her best friends. They think it's the gypsy blood in Zoe's great aunt, Pasha Tamarin, that has kept the two women moving from town to town while Pasha raised Zoe and even after Zoe was as adult. The fact is, Pasha isn't really Zoe's aunt and they aren't just two ladies who love the next great adventure. Zoe was once lost in the foster system and to save her, Pasha "took" her and they've been careful never to set roots too deep ever since. Zoe and Pasha's latest move has them leaving Arizona to join Lacey and the other girls to help run the Casa Blanca resort in Barefoot Bay; Zoe is launching a hot air balloon ride business and hoping that the change of scenery will help her ailing old aunt. Zoe never plans to see Oliver Bradbury again, although she did run into him a year ago at a posh hotel in Naples, Florida. She assumed he was visiting and that he still lived in Chicago, where they'd met. Oliver, now a renowned oncologist known for his unorthodox and aggressive treatment of cancer, has moved to Naples permanently, and lives just on the other side of the causeway that leads to Barefoot Bay. When Zoe realizes her aunt is suffering from a rare, but she believes, treatable, cancer, they are stuck. Pasha is terrified to go to a doctor, certain that records prove that she essentially kidnapped Zoe as a little girl. But Zoe know Pasha has to get help and decides that Oliver owes her...and goes to him for help, off the books. It'll take a miracle for Pasha to survive...and another for Zoe and Oliver to find love again. But if you don't believe in miracles, how can you ever experience one?