Bluebird Gold by Devney Perry

A wintry, atmospheric romance with a sharp suspense edge—set in 1983 Montana, where grief turns into obsession and a small-town crush turns into something you can’t ignore. Bluebird Gold blends healing-after-loss with a “what really happened?” mystery tied to a local legend of lost gold… and a sheriff who’s equal parts steady, protective, and impossible to stay away from.

After her father’s sudden death, the heroine uproots her life to spend the winter in his tiny lakeside cabin in Dalton, Montana, settling his estate and saying goodbye. Everyone tells her to sell and move on, but she can’t—not when her dad loved Montana lore, and not when cleaning out the cabin starts raising questions about his life… and his death.

To keep busy, she takes a temporary teaching job, only to find herself drawn to Sheriff Cosi Raynes—a man she absolutely shouldn’t crush on. His son is her student, his life is rooted in Montana, and hers is supposed to be headed anywhere else. But when she discovers strange clues her father left behind about a legend of lost Montana gold, the search pulls her deeper into Dalton—and straight into Cosi’s orbit.

What starts as a winter of healing becomes a race for answers, because someone in town is determined to keep the truth buried. And if she gets too close, they’ll make sure she doesn’t live long enough to solve it.