Maddy Bainbridge knew that the things that drove her crazy about her mother when she was seventeen would drive her crazier now that she is thirty-two, but Rose's invitation to re home to the Jersey Shore came at a time when Maddy had few choices. Her ex had just remarried, her four-year-old daughter had lost her smile, and her job had gone the way of a thousand other dot-com disasters.

Living under her mother's roof makes Maddy feel like a teenager again --- and a sullen, misunderstood one at that. But even more than her troubled relationship with her mother, Maddy is worried about her daughter and determined to give her something to smile about, even if it means engaging in a heated on-line auction for an old Russian samovar. Ex-firefighter Aidan O'Malley wanted that samovar for his teenage daughter, and he isn't happy at being outbid. But from a bidding war, a most unlikely --- and romantic --- connection is formed. Both wary and weary, neither Maddy nor Aidan expect to care so deeply --- and so quickly --- about each other. But amidst some surprising family secrets, their efforts to give a little girl and an elderly woman their hearts' desires may just give Maddy and Aidan a chance of finding their own ...

*** CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE ***