Retreat by Noelle Adams

For years, Cecily has poured her time and energy into her work at Balm in Gilead. She’s more successful than she ever imagined, but her work is no longer enough for her. She wants more. She wants a man, even if that man is completely unavailable to her.

She wants Zeke Ward, who looks like a lumberjack and acts like a hermit and has worked for her for eight years.

Ever since his wife died, Zeke has cut himself off from the world, scaring people away so they never get close to him. But he can’t help but watch Cecily, even knowing he can never have her. When she starts to seek out his company, he knows it’s only because she’s been feeling a little lonely.

She’ll never want him for him.

Retreat is the third book in the Balm in Gilead series, a spin-off from the Willow Park series about couples who fall in love in a physical and spiritual rest center on the North Carolina coast called Balm in Gilead.