She's been betrayed. than once. He's been on the wrong path, ready for a change. Hooking up should be easy, right? Wrong. Maddie's got a boatload of baggage and a history full of emotional landmines. Can Jack solve the mystery of her past, overcome the specter of a dead lover and still come out the hero?"Trust me, Maddie. I'll be right behind you.""What if I fall?""I can skate faster than you can fall," Jack whispered,and Maddie closed her eyes against the shiver thatenveloped her body…Ice Hockey. Strong coffee. His infant son, Duncan. Three things Jack McKenzie could not do without. Now he was about to add a fourth. Beautiful, green-eyed Madelyn Cross has reappeared in his life with a load of baggage and a history riddled with emotional landmines.They almost hooked up in high school, but their fathers had different ideas. Now, years later, their paths cross in a beautiful Southern California park. Each has a son, and each has an unhappy past; both share a need for love, passion and devotion. But can Jack solve the mysteries in Maddie's past, overcome the specter of her dead lover and still come out the hero?

On her seventh birthday, Pauline rode across the lawns on her street followed by her best friend Henry, he on the blue wooden horse, she on the red. On the seventh lawn at the top of the street, she collapsed, becoming a sudden victim of the polio outbreak of the summer of 1954.Five years later, when In the Clear begins, she has survived, but paid a heavy price. A brace on her left leg allows her to walk, but she confines herself to her house, humiliated at the notion of being seen. Terrified by what Pauline has already suffered, her mother watches over her, forbidding her to play hockey on the ice rink her father has created in the backyard. In the Clear alternates, chapter by chapter, between Pauline's horror-filled year in the hospital five years earlier and her struggles to adapt in the present of 1959 and 1960. At the end of the book, her triumphs in past and present come together and she is able to move forward with new friendships, a renewed bond with her mother and,...