Thursday, April 11, 2013

The Texas Lawman's Woman - Cathy Gillen Thacker (HAR #1449 - May 2013)

Series: McCabe Homecoming (Book 1)

The Best Man In Laramie

She's no damsel in distress, but Shelley Meyerson may just need a white knight like deputy sheriff Colt McCabe. Thanks to her scheming ex-husband, Shelley's about to lose her home. The last person she wants to turn to for help is Colt, the guy who broke her heart the night of the high school prom. But now that she's back in Laramie, there's no avoiding him-especially when they're both serving in the same wedding party.

True, the handsome, gallant lawman is a valuable ally. And he seems genuinely interested in Shelley and her little boy. She could definitely use a friend...and maybe something more. Rekindling their romance is easy-but learning to trust again is hard. Especially when Shelley learns that Colt's been keeping a secret that could cost him his badge.... 


Very good book.  Shelley has come back to Laramie to pick up the pieces of her life.  She has divorced her husband who ran up large debts in their name and then left her to deal with it.  Now she is living in the house she inherited and trying to deal with seeing Colt again.  She has never forgiven him for standing her up the night of prom and now they have to spend time together working on their friends' wedding. As they come to terms with their past they find that the old attraction is still there. When she finds out that her ex fraudulently used her house as collateral and she's about to be evicted she turns to Colt for help. 

I mostly liked Shelley.  She is a great mom to her son and a wonderful friend to the bride-to-be.  She puts a lot of effort into helping with the wedding.  The part that bothered me the most about her is her refusal to truly hold her ex accountable for his actions.  She keeps trying to find ways to solve the problem of losing her house without having him arrested. I found her pretty naive that she thought that it would be easy to get the bank to see that it wasn't her fault and the eviction would be stopped, even though Colt and her lawyer told her it was unlikely. She does realize that she now has trust issues because of the way her ex hid all his actions from her.  I did like the way that she came to realize that what she felt for Colt was far different than what she had felt for her ex.  I also liked the way that she finally started taking charge of her life and actions.  She also realized that the things that Colt had hidden from her were mostly things that he had no choice about.

Colt was a nice guy, almost too nice for the job he had.  He is the type of lawman that is more interested in doing what is right than making a lot of arrests.  He tends to give people warnings rather than tickets or arresting them.  This has caused him to now be under investigation for improper conduct.  He's not allowed to tell anyone that it is going on which is causing him some problems with Shelley.  It also hasn't stopped him from stretching the rules on a few occasions which gets him into more hot water.  I loved his compassion for other people and the way that he truly wanted to help them.  I also liked the fact that even though he has a large trust fund of his own, he has a job and lives on what he makes.  He offers to use some of that trust fund to help Shelley and is somewhat bummed that she won't let him.  I really enjoyed seeing him with Shelley's son and how good he was with the little boy.  By the end of the book he had finally started to see what the consequences of some of his actions were and why he was in so much trouble.  I loved the solution that his boss came up with and how perfect it was for Colt.

Both Shelley and Colt had some growing up to do.  Each of them had to learn how their actions affected their lives and those of others.  I loved how they came out at the end stronger and more confident than they had been at the beginning.



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