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Bramble Creek #1
Windfall
I say the hard thing to his face on day one. Nobody has done that to Declan Rourke in four years.
I'm a plant pathologist with a doctorate, a clean car, and no authority whatsoever. All I have is a name people in Portland believe—and the report I'm writing on his family's orchard could cost him everything.
Four acres. Sixty-one heritage apple trees almost nobody else in Oregon grows at volume. One cider contract. One bank note written against it. And one man standing at the end of the row like weather coming in.
Declan has held his late father's orchard together with both hands and his teeth. Broad through the shoulders, quiet to the point of rude, a widower who knows what's in every single row.
His trees are sick. I'm the one who has to put it in writing.
He doesn't run me off his land. He tells me to write it anyway.
Then every hotel within forty minutes is booked through the Harvest Fair, his mother marches me to the pickers' cottage, and I'm sleeping two hundred yards from his door. His eight-year-old is studying me like a puzzle she fully intends to solve. And every night in that kitchen—his hands, his voice, the way he waits to be told the next inch—makes the report on my laptop harder to type.
He'd rather lose the farm than watch me shade one line for him.
I'd rather lose my name than watch him lose it.
I have never once gone soft on a report.
I have also never wanted this badly to be wrong.
Windfall is a steamy, slow-burn, open-door small town romance with a grumpy widower single dad, a heroine who tells the truth early and pays for it, forced proximity, a kid who is nobody's matchmaker, a big loud family that argues at full volume and makes up at the dinner table, and a whole valley with opinions. Book One of Bramble Creek—a standalone with a full HEA and no cliffhanger. The Rourke family's story is only getting started.
I'm a plant pathologist with a doctorate, a clean car, and no authority whatsoever. All I have is a name people in Portland believe—and the report I'm writing on his family's orchard could cost him everything.
Four acres. Sixty-one heritage apple trees almost nobody else in Oregon grows at volume. One cider contract. One bank note written against it. And one man standing at the end of the row like weather coming in.
Declan has held his late father's orchard together with both hands and his teeth. Broad through the shoulders, quiet to the point of rude, a widower who knows what's in every single row.
His trees are sick. I'm the one who has to put it in writing.
He doesn't run me off his land. He tells me to write it anyway.
Then every hotel within forty minutes is booked through the Harvest Fair, his mother marches me to the pickers' cottage, and I'm sleeping two hundred yards from his door. His eight-year-old is studying me like a puzzle she fully intends to solve. And every night in that kitchen—his hands, his voice, the way he waits to be told the next inch—makes the report on my laptop harder to type.
He'd rather lose the farm than watch me shade one line for him.
I'd rather lose my name than watch him lose it.
I have never once gone soft on a report.
I have also never wanted this badly to be wrong.
Windfall is a steamy, slow-burn, open-door small town romance with a grumpy widower single dad, a heroine who tells the truth early and pays for it, forced proximity, a kid who is nobody's matchmaker, a big loud family that argues at full volume and makes up at the dinner table, and a whole valley with opinions. Book One of Bramble Creek—a standalone with a full HEA and no cliffhanger. The Rourke family's story is only getting started.
434 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 22, 2026
About the author
K.S. Van
126 books9 followersK.S. Van writes cozy mysteries and warm, character-first romance.
His longest series, The Moonhaven Mysteries, follows retired homicide detective Sam Blackwood, a Victorian ghost and a Border Collie along the coast of Maine. Ten books, complete.
He also writes the Saltkettle Cove novels (cozy seaside fantasy romance in a Cornish village that feeds you whether you like it or not), the Westfall Vipers (college basketball romance), the Ivy Bloom Mysteries (a small-town Vermont matchmaker who reads documents better than people), Marigold Falls Billionaires (small-town romance, also Vermont) and Bramble Creek (small-town romance on an Oregon orchard).
Every romance ends happily. Every mystery plays fair.
Free stories for readers: https://ksvan.eu/free/
His longest series, The Moonhaven Mysteries, follows retired homicide detective Sam Blackwood, a Victorian ghost and a Border Collie along the coast of Maine. Ten books, complete.
He also writes the Saltkettle Cove novels (cozy seaside fantasy romance in a Cornish village that feeds you whether you like it or not), the Westfall Vipers (college basketball romance), the Ivy Bloom Mysteries (a small-town Vermont matchmaker who reads documents better than people), Marigold Falls Billionaires (small-town romance, also Vermont) and Bramble Creek (small-town romance on an Oregon orchard).
Every romance ends happily. Every mystery plays fair.
Free stories for readers: https://ksvan.eu/free/
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September 28, 2026
Windfall by K.S. Van is a heartfelt, slow-burn romance filled with emotional tension, undeniable chemistry, and small-town charm. As a determined plant pathologist and a guarded widower fight to save his family's orchard, their growing connection challenges everything they thought they knew about love, honesty, and sacrifice. A beautifully compelling story for readers who love grumpy heroes, forced proximity, and romance with real emotional depth.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review