The Sinner's Love Song — Arlene James

Can a known sinner win the heart and the hand of a devout young woman with an overprotective family?Stuart Champ Champion is the last of the original HOBBY RUN band members to remain unmarried and the one who has most longed for love and connection. Alone in the world since the deaths of his adoptive parents, he's looked for love in all the wrong places, so he's determined to make his current liaison with Allie, the sister of a band mate, a permanent relationship. He knows that their sexual involvement is wrong and goes to great lengths to keep it hidden, especially from the likes of lovely, innocent Mary Sofia Carter, a recent college graduate looking for an entry level job in the business world. When Stuart's lover, a successful Real Estate developer, hires Mary Sofia, the affair is discovered. Allie is amused. Stuart is horrified. Seeing himself as Mary Sofia must see him brings deep shame, so he sets out to make things right. Mary Sofia has always seen Champ as her ideal. Handsome, sophisticated, kind, if a bit aloof, he would never look in her direction. Even should he break up with Allie, Mary Sofia fears she could never hold his interest, and she's too much like her late mother to let herself fall for a man who can't love her in the same way she loves him. Besides, her protective older brothers would never approve of Champ. Still, her faith demands that she not turn her back on a man seeking repentance. Stuart knows he's not good enough for Mary Sofia, but he feels responsible for the situation in which she finds herself at work. That situation is more dangerous than either of them realizes, until a rich Lithuanian, Raulo Laukaitis, arrives to cement a business contract with Allie. At a welcome party for Laukaitis, lives will be changed forever, but for the worse or the better?