Ruckus (sinners of Saint, #2)

This contemporary romance is told in alternating perspectives between Dean "Ruckus" Cole and Rosie LeBlanc, spanning both the present and flashbacks to their teenage years in the town of Todos Santos.

Rosie LeBlanc is a 28-year-old barista with cystic fibrosis, a chronic lung disease that shortens life expectancy and requires daily medications, physiotherapy, and breathing treatments. She lives in a Manhattan apartment she rents cheaply from Dean and his business partners, who co-own the building, and volunteers at a neonatal intensive care unit. Rosie recently broke up with Darren, a podiatrist, because she believes he deserves a partner who can offer him a normal future. Dean Cole, a 29-year-old CEO of the investment firm Fiscal Heights Holdings, lives in the penthouse of the same building. A heavy drinker whose addictions trace back to childhood, Dean has been infatuated with Rosie since high school, and their every encounter crackles with tension and hostility.

Flashbacks to 11 years earlier establish the source of their conflict. When Dean arrived at the servants' house on the Spencer estate to ask out Emilia "Millie" LeBlanc, Rosie's older sister, Rosie opened the door instead, and Dean was immediately captivated by her. Before he could act, a distraught Millie rushed in, kissed him, and asked him to date her. Dean agreed to protect Millie from the bullying of their classmate Baron "Vicious" Spencer, though his attention remained fixed on Rosie. He compared their situation to the biblical story of Jacob, who worked 14 years for the woman he truly loved after first being given her older sister. One afternoon, Dean threw Rosie into a pool, and she caught pneumonia. He left The Bronze Horseman on her pillow with a note urging her to fight for them, but she returned it, telling him to make Millie happy. After Millie left Todos Santos with a breakup letter, Dean kissed Rosie. She returned the kiss but pushed him away, declaring him dead to her because he had dated her sister.

In the present, Dean pressures Rosie into flying to Todos Santos for Vicious and Millie's wedding rehearsal, leveraging a rent increase as a threat. At the mansion, Rosie reunites with Millie, who appears unwell and is not drinking. A disastrous family dinner erupts when Rosie's father, Paul, calls her a burden and says she cannot afford to be choosy about partners. Her mother, Charlene, cries that Rosie is dying. Devastated, Rosie texts Dean for rescue. He picks her up in an old truck, and they drive around town. He shares his passion for astronomy, telling her she is Sirius, the one star that truly twinkles. They kiss on a bench overlooking the town, and Rosie asks him to make her forget. They have sex in the truck, an encounter that is passionate and transformative for both.

The following days bring guilt and denial. Rosie insists it can never happen again, but Dean refuses to accept this. At the rehearsal dinner, Rosie delivers a heartfelt toast to the couple, only for Charlene to whisper thanks for not ruining the event, further wounding Rosie. During the dinner, Trent Rexroth, one of Dean's business partners, receives devastating news that Val, the mother of his infant daughter Luna, has abandoned the baby. Dean comforts Rosie in the hallway, and she realizes she has never stopped loving him.

In Las Vegas for the bachelor and bachelorette parties, Rosie's suspicion that Millie is pregnant is confirmed when she watches Millie's friends touching Millie's belly. Feeling excluded, Rosie provokes Dean by dancing with a stranger at a club. He confronts her, and they later have sex in his hotel suite, where Dean forgets to use a condom. Back in Todos Santos, Rosie confesses to Millie that she slept with Dean. Millie is entirely unbothered, reveals she is nine weeks pregnant, and gives her full blessing, explaining that she and Dean were never in love.

After the wedding, Dean and Rosie return to New York as an official couple. He sends a thousand roses to her café, each card claiming her as his. They settle into a routine, though both harbor significant secrets. Dean is tormented by relentless phone calls from Nina, a figure from his past whose connection to him he refuses to discuss. Rosie notices his distress but does not push. She, in turn, has not disclosed the full scope of her health limitations.

On a surprise Thanksgiving trip to Todos Santos, their secrets finally surface. Dean reveals his deepest truth: He is adopted. His biological mother, Nina, abandoned him as a newborn in a Walmart bathroom in Alabama. Helen Cole, Nina's sister, adopted Dean and raised him as her own with her husband, Eli Cole. Nina, who had a drug addiction, exploited Dean during childhood summer visits, introducing him to alcohol and drugs at ages 9 and 12. She has been demanding six hundred thousand dollars to reveal the identity of Dean's biological father. Rosie urges him to pay, meet his father, and close the chapter. She then shares her own secret: She is completely infertile and can never work as a nurse due to her compromised immune system. She refuses marriage and children, not wanting to leave orphans behind. Dean rejects her resignation, declaring his love and insisting they will marry and adopt. Rosie tells him she loves him for the first time.

Dean wires Nina the money and goes to the designated café, where he finds Eli waiting. The devastating truth is that Eli is Dean's biological father. Years earlier, Eli, then struggling with severe alcohol addiction, drunkenly slept with Nina, who had crawled into his bed while Helen was away. Shattered, Dean sees his own history reflected in his father's mistake: a man who came between two sisters. He storms out and drinks himself into a blackout. Meanwhile, Rosie arrives at the Hamptons house Dean rented for them and finds herself locked out in a cold rainstorm. Unable to reach him, she collapses and is taken to the hospital.

Rosie wakes at Good Samaritan Hospital with her family at her bedside. Her lungs are collapsing, and the infection has spread to her liver and pancreas. Dean, wracked with guilt, races to the hospital but is barred from seeing her for days. Eli visits Dean, revealing the full story and his own recovery from alcohol addiction. Eli tells Dean that Helen initially filed for divorce but changed her mind when Dean was born, because Dean was worth saving their family. He urges Dean to stop drinking and fight for Rosie, because time is the one thing money cannot buy.

With the help of Vicious, Dean reaches the hospital, reconciles with Millie, and finally enters Rosie's room after she sends away Darren, whom her father had invited. At her bedside, Dean apologizes, reveals the truth about Eli, and declares his love. Rosie, fading, tells him she loves him and asks him to promise to live and have children after she is gone. Her eyes close and the monitor alarms sound.

The epilogue jumps forward three years. Dean has been sober the entire time, and Rosie survived the health crisis. They adopted a son named Knight, born on the same date they first slept together. Dean, Vicious, their fellow business partner Jaime Followhill, and Trent all live in Todos Santos with their families after selling half of Fiscal Heights Holdings. Nina died of a drug overdose shortly after Rosie's hospitalization, and Dean has reconciled with Eli. In a final twist, Rosie reveals that she has defied her medical prognosis and conceived a biological son. She is eight months into a high-risk pregnancy, and they plan to name the baby Lev, Hebrew for "heart." Dean does not carry the cystic fibrosis gene, so the baby will be healthy. Her water breaks in the closing lines.