Deep in the Valley

June Hudson is the town's doctor, a caring, capable woman who now has a bit of explaining to do. People are beginning to notice the bloom in her cheeks--and the swell of her belly. Happily, DEA agent Jim Post is back in June's arms for good, newly retired from undercover work and ready for new beginnings here in Grace Valley.

Expecting the unexpected is a way of life in Grace Valley, and the community is overflowing with gossip right now. Who is the secret paramour June's aunt Myrna is hiding? Does the town's poker-playing pastor have too many aces up his sleeve? But when dangers, from man and nature, rise up with a vengeance to threaten June and the town, this community pulls together and shows what it's made of. And Jim discovers the true meaning of happiness here in Grace Valley: there really is no place like home.

Welcome back to Grace Valley, California, where the best things in life never change...

Here in this peaceful community, folks look out for one another like family, though sometimes a little too well. In a town like this, it's hard to keep a secret--but Dr. June Hudson has managed to keep one heck of a humdinger....

Though visits from her secret lover, undercover DEA agent Jim Post, are as clandestine as they are passionate, somehow it fits with her demanding schedule as the town's doctor--a calling that requires an innate ability to exist on caffeine, sticky buns and nerves of steel.

But how can a secret lover compete with a flesh-and-blood heartthrob from her past? June's old flame has just returned to town after twenty years--and he's divorced. June is seriously rattled. So when the town's most devoted wife takes buckshot to her husband and some human bones turn up in her aunt Myrna's backyard, she's almost happy for the distraction.

Sooner or later, love will have its way in Grace Valley. It always does.

Stung personally and professionally by an ill-advised affair, PR guru Jillian Matlock has rented an old Victorian with a promising garden in Virgin River. She's looking forward to cultivating something other than a corporate brand.

Lilly has encountered her share of strong, silent, traditional men within her own aboriginal community, and she's not interested in coming back for more. In her eyes, Clay's earthy, sexy appeal is just an act used to charm wealthy women like his ex-wife. She can't deny his gift for gentling horses, but she's not about to let him control her. There's just one small problem-she can't control her attraction to Clay.

Puttering in Jill's garden and cooking with her heirloom vegetables is wonderful, but Virgin River is a far cry from San Francisco. Kelly's starting to feel a little too unmotivated…until she meets Lief Holbrook. The handsome widower looks more like a lumberjack than a sophisticated screenwriter-a combination Kelly finds irresistible. But less appealing is Lief's rebellious stepdaughter, Courtney. She's the reason they moved from L.A., but Courtney's finding plenty of trouble even in Virgin River.

Last Christmas Marcie Sullivan said a final goodbye to her husband, Bobby. This Christmas she's come to Virgin River to find the man who saved his life and gave her three more years to love him.

Fellow marine Ian Buchanan dragged Bobby's shattered body onto a medical transport in Fallujah four years ago, then disappeared as soon as their unit arrived stateside. Since then, Marcie's letters to Ian have gone unanswered.

Marcie tracks Ian to the tiny mountain town of Virgin River and finds a man as wounded emotionally as Bobby was physically. But she is not easily scared off. As Marcie pushes her way into his rugged and reclusive life, she discovers a sweet but damaged soul beneath a rough exterior.

Ian doesn't know what to make of the determined young widow who forces him to look into the painful past and, what's worse, the uncertain future. But it is, after all, a season of miracles and maybe, just maybe, it's time to banish the ghosts and open his heart.