Keeping His Promise

Keeping His Promise is a story of second chances at love, and at following dreams. Kate Cameron Shaw has put her life back together after the death of her husband, but it's been a struggle learning how to be a single parent, manage the busy restaurant business her husband left behind and rekindle her own career in journalism. When she has new and conflicting feelings for Jon Canfield who's been her best friend all her life, guilt and ambition seem to get in the way. They argue over a proposal to establish a second chance house for non-violent ex-cons, and Kate's desire to be a ground-breaking journalist has her digging up dirt on the woman spearheading this effort that Jon supports.

Jon Canfield loves his job as a small town cop in coastal Tide's Way, North Carolina and very much wants the chief's job when the current chief retires at the end of the year. He also loves Kate. He loved her when they were kids, then hid his heartbreak when she fell in love with and married his best friend. Two years ago fate and a drunk driver gave Jon a second chance.

As a law enforcement officer, Jon believes two things: that young men with little guidance and no strong male role-models in their lives frequently get drawn into a life of crime that starts out small, but can end in a lifetime sentence, and when someone offers these young men a second chance to get it right, recidivism declines sharply. He is very much in favor of the new mayoral candidate's plan to turn a property owned by the town into a place where recently freed non-violent ex-cons can find shelter, support, employment and a second chance to put their lives on a positive path.

As a mother of two young girls, Kate sees all the disadvantages of having troubled young men living in their small, close-knit, family-friendly town, and she is doing everything she can to thwart such a half-way house in Tide's Way. Can two people who are so divided on such a critical issue ever find common ground? Maybe even their close friendship will be threatened, never mind the possibility of finding a happy-ever-after ending.