Jen’s review of Chain of Command (Greenway Range #1) by HelenKay Dimon.
Retired marine Sawyer Cain can’t forget all he’s seen and lost, but he can try to start over. Opening a gun range with his closest friends is the first step toward a new life—one where he finally buries the guilt he can’t seem to shake. So much depends on the property he needs to buy…and the gorgeous but completely frustrating woman who refuses to sell it.
Hailey Thorne is done—with loss and with anything military, after the closest thing she had to an uncle died in Afghanistan. When Sawyer shows up on her porch he has military written all over him. He’s one more in a long line of people who wants the land she inherited, and suddenly he’s everywhere she goes. Hailey can’t get the broad-shouldered, dirty-talking, dead-serious man out of her head. Or her life.
Sawyer’s not above using his skills in the bedroom to try to convince her to sell, and Hailey is more than willing to let him. Their pleasure-only arrangement works…until emotions get in the way. But Sawyer has a secret he’s convinced will have Hailey hating him forever, and Hailey’s not willing to risk loving anyone she could lose.
My favorite kind of contemporaries are sweet, sexy stories without too much angst. Chain of Command mostly falls into that category, and it was an enjoyable read.
Hailey Thorne is living on some land outside San Diego, left to her by her adopted father-figure Ray, a military contractor who died on a job in Afghanistan. The land is extremely desirable in a place where there isn’t much open land left, and Hailey’s been fielding countless lucrative offers for the property. She doesn’t want to sell, though, partly because she’s sort of stuck in her grief for Ray and can’t move forward. When Sawyer Cain comes calling claiming that Ray promised him part of the land for his gun range business, Hailey wants nothing to do with him. The two can’t help but be massively attracted, however. Sawyer is the de facto leader and protector of his little group of friends and family, and he wants the business to give them all a purpose and help them stay together. For a variety of reasons, Hailey’s land is currently the only viable option for the range so he needs her cooperation, but as he gets to know her, he realizes he also likes her personally. The two agree to table the conversation about the range so they can explore a sexual relationship, but the issue still looms, and eventually they have to face it and decide whether they can separate it from their growing feelings.
Hailey and Sawyer are a lovely couple. I liked the way that Hailey set rules for their relationship at first, and I especially liked that Sawyer respected those rules. He is definitely an alpha protector, but to me it never felt too over the top. He’s a retired Marine, though, and you can see how that experience in commanding and in protecting comes through in his interactions with everyone he cares about, including Hailey. I liked Hailey too. She’s wary of Sawyer and why he wants her land, but I appreciated that she didn’t hold that over his head when it came to their personal relationship. She and Sawyer have a really sexy chemistry. Their bedroom talk was hot – Sawyer is awfully good at what I’d classify as gentle dirty talk, if that makes any sense. I liked how they fit together, and I believed in their compatibility at the end.
We also get to see Sawyer and Hailey’s friends in this book. I liked that both characters have created little families for themselves, and all of their friends are wonderfully supportive. There’s a set up for a future couple in the series as well. Sawyer’s friend Jason and sister Molly apparently have a long simmering and unacknowledged attraction, though truthfully what I saw of them in this book didn’t really grab my attention. Molly is too passive aggressive and doesn’t say what she’s thinking, and Jason is too obtuse, or maybe just cowardly, to face Molly. But, I’ll keep an open mind until I read the next installment. I really loved hearing about Sawyer’s friend Marcus and his closeted boyfriend. Marcus seemed like a caring, intuitive friend, and I wanted to hear more about his struggles to be an out gay man in the military. I’m hoping maybe we get Marcus’s story in a future book!
I did think the ending was a little predictable. Not that I didn’t want everyone to end up happy and satisfied of course, but it just seemed like there were so many major challenges with the decisions made that I wondered how Sawyer and Hailey could overcome them. I guess I wanted something unexpected, or else a little more explanation to put my mind at ease. Still, while there are lots of heavy issues in this book, things weren’t too weighty or dramatic. There is one issue alluded to in the cover copy, of Sawyer’s guilt, that did seem a little melodramatic and out of character for Sawyer. I appreciated that it didn’t get dragged out overlong, however.
Despite a few imperfections, I liked the humor, I liked the characters, and I am happy I read this one.
Grade: 4 out of 5
This book is available from Carina Press. You can purchase it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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