Always Running - N.W. Brown

Taryn Ellison doesn't do relationships.

She learned early in life that standing still for love gets you hurt. So she runs from anything that asks too much of her heart. After watching her mother fall for the wrong men over and over, Taryn built a life where no one could get close enough to leave scars. Walls up. Exit routes ready. Always moving.

Then there's Zion Wade.

The steady one. The patient one.

Her best friend's brother and VP of A&R for his family's music empire, Zion understands why Taryn runs. He sees the fear beneath her sarcasm, and the independence she uses as armor. So when they finally cross the line they've been dancing around for years, and she tries to act like it meant nothing, he doesn't push.

He just stays.

Long enough for her walls to crack.

Long enough for her to realize the thing she's spent her life running from might be the thing she wants more than anything.

She can't avoid him. Not at his family's record label, not at Sunday dinners with his sister Simone, not when everyone around them feels the pull between them long before either of them admits it.

But Taryn knows what no one else does: Good things don't last, and love doesn't stay. And the closer she gets to Zion, the more she sees herself becoming the one thing she swore she'd never be.

Her mother's daughter.

Set against the backdrop of a Black Southern music dynasty navigating legacy, loyalty, and healing, Always Running is a story about choosing vulnerability over self-protection, and discovering that the scariest love doesn't rush you, but it does ask you to trust it.