January TBR Theme: Category

It was supposed to be the most wonderful night of their young lives. Cassie McGuire was barely eighteen and ready to elope with the man of her dreams, when tragedy struck. With the new future now facing her, there was no way Cassie was going to saddle the adventurous Ethan Rafferty with a woman who might never ride again, much less walk. So she sent him away.

Cassie gets the shock of her life when Ethan returns to Texas. The sexy wrangler is as handsome as ever—but he’ll be fit to be tied once he discovers her secret. Will he forgive her—or will he fight her for the son he didn’t know he had?

Cassie and Ethan are ready to elope…well not quite. Ethan’s finishing up a few things in the barn and Cassie wanders around to say hello to the horses. She familiar with the horses as this is her father’s barn and Ethan works for her father. Unfortunately the one horse Cassie’s not too familiar with spooks and Cassie is rushed to the hospital. Cassie might lose her leg and her self-pitied, martyrdom’d state she tells Ethan that they shouldn’t get married, he should leave and for the most part that she doesn’t think that he’s good enough for her. Now, does she really feel like this or is it a combination of her overprotective father, the drugs and the self-pity she feels at possibly losing her leg? She deludes herself into thinking that it’s because she doesn’t want to bring Ethan down and make him suffer with a “cripple” but it’s really all about her.

Now 13 years have passed and Ethan is back in Texas and is starting a branch of his business right next door to where Cassie lives. Cassie’s none too thrilled to have him there – especially when he sees her 12 year old son and realizes that the boy is his son as well. Now that Ethan knows that he has a son he wants to get to know Donny but Cassie and her ex-husband, who Donny thinks of as his father end up stalling the big reveal to Donny. On top of that Ethan knows that he’s still in love with Cassie and he wants to make her see that they can still have a future together.

I had a few problems with this book – Cassie being the main problem. I just didn’t like her. I thought she was a micro-managing, overprotective, control freak and she made me a bit crazy. I understand to a point that she was trying to protect her son and the life that they’d come to know, but unfortunately times they were a-changin and she needed to figure out how to deal with it. Instead of being forthcoming with her son about Ethan, or anything really, she kept him completely out of the loop and told him nothing. Because Donny wasn’t a stupid pre-teen he knew something was going on – besides his parents divorce which he certainly wasn’t happy about – and was acting out at home and school because of it. I think if Cassie had sat down with him and actually talked to him instead of trying to just boss him around things would have been so different.

Cassie with Ethan…talk about a bumpy ride. Wow. Cassie told Ethan that she didn’t tell him about Donny because she didn’t think he wanted kids because of some obscure mention of children 13 years before. However, she neglected, conveniently, to remember what he said the night they were supposed to elope:

“Yes, I want to marry you. I want to make love to you. I want to make babies with you and watch them grow up to make babies of their own.”

I think it’s pretty clear that the man wants kids, don’t you?

sigh I loved Ethan and frankly I wasn’t sure what the attraction to Cassie was and I thought he could do so much better. He was, as far as I’m concerned, a friggin saint. That man put up with more crap than any one man should ever have to deal with. He was really left to dangle while Cassie tried to get her act together and he was so patient. Definitely a hero that I could read more about.

After all the Cassie dissing I have to say that I really did like the way the story was written and the pacing of the book. I would definitely read more from Ms. Evans in the future.

Rating: 3 out of 5