Free Falling

✨Coming February 2026
Colburn Brothers | A Novel

Tropes: Slow Burn, Found Family, Close Proximity, Workplace Romance, Small Town Romance, Opposites Attract, Rivals to this-means-nothing to lovers

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PAPERBACK:

"The perfect escape!" —Lucy Score, #1 New York Times bestselling author, for He Falls First

College rivals become workplace frenemies-turned-lovers in this warm, sexy contemporary romance from New York Times bestseller Jill Shalvis. Is it the exciting new renovation project or Caleb and Emma's feisty banter that fires them up more? The hardest part? Each of them has sworn off love.

Caleb Colburn needs this project to prove himself in his field, but he's also tasked with caring for the father he's hated all his life, who's had a stroke. His damaged leg is killing him but he refuses to admit it or slow down. But the hardest thing to accept is the way he's not only having to work with Emma Sumner, he's falling for her, the woman who once made his life a living hell.

As for Emma all she has to do is make sure her job goes from temp to permanent by handling this big project, making sure the history is respected and the property restored to its former glory. No easy task, one that is made all the more challenging by the Project Manager, Caleb Colburn — the one and only man who she'd ever let destroy her when in college he, the spoiled hockey star who wanted for nothing got the scholarship she'd desperately needed to stay in school. She's been living hand to mouth ever since, in a pattern of always scrambling, and despite their intense mutual attraction, Emma doesn't know if she can ever forgive Caleb.

The Colburn Brothers Series

A trilogy of three unruly brothers, where adventures and shenanigans abound, as well as guaranteed, heart-stopping and heart-melting happily-ever-afters (with a blink and you’ll miss it overarching mystery)  You’ll want to read this series in order! :)

Read an Excerpt

“Do you know you always deflect attention away from yourself? It’s a tell. You’re not okay.”

        Well, I was a hell of a lot better now with him standing so close, sharing his body heat. His eyes were clearer, his pain had lessened. His mouth was slightly quirked and I couldn’t tear my eyes from it.

        “Emma.”

        “Hmm?” Watching those lips move could become an addiction—

        A low, rough laugh escaped him and I licked my lips, an utterly unconscious movement that had his eyes darkening.

        My hands slid up his arms—when had I made that decision?—and his settled on my hips, fingers tightened when I kept staring at that mouth I wanted on me.

        “Killing me, Em,” he whispered.

        “But not a bad way to go, right?”

        He made a purely male sound, I made one of my own, and then I had no idea who moved first, but our mouths connected in a heated, heart-stopping, bone-melting, delicious kiss. With a rough groan, he pulled me hard into him, one hand fisting in my hair, the other stroking up and down my back, further each time, until he had a palmful of my butt, his fingers squeezing—

        His phone beeped.

        We broke apart, and I don’t know about him, but my heart was threatening to secede from the united states of Emma, and I couldn’t catch my breath.