The Second Firing

Three years ago, the studio burned. Elise Voss lost more than pots in the ash, her confidence, her future, and the man she loved, Adrian Calloway, who vanished before the embers cooled. She has spent every day since carefully rebuilding what the fire took, one cone-ten firing at a time, under the watchful eye of her mother Mara and the steady friendship of June. Now, with her most important kiln loaded and a gallery opening on the horizon, Elise is finally close to believing she has survived. Then Adrian walks back into her life. He is no longer the reckless sculptor who left her at the worst possible moment. He is older, steadier, and holding a business proposition she cannot afford to refuse, along with a confession she never asked to hear. As the kiln climbs toward its peak, Elise is forced to weigh the warnings of June, the quiet counsel of Tomás, and the unsettling interest of Dorian Whit and Cassian Rourke, whose involvement in her comeback carries its own price. Every firing holds only so much. To make room for what comes next, Elise will have to pull the broken pieces out, the man who shattered her, the friend who knows too much, and the woman she might still become if she is brave enough to let the old clay go.