Series: Conard County: The Next Generation (Book 36)Conard County (Book 54)
The return…
Vanessa Welling never planned to leave home…until her
family fled in shame in the wake of the financial catastrophe that shattered
their town -- and her father's will to live. If it weren't for the wreck of a
house she just inherited, Vanessa wouldn't have come back, either. And
attractive contractor Tim Dawson and his young son are making it even harder to
put the Wyoming town behind her once and for all.
Tim has heard the stories. But Vanessa did nothing wrong
and shouldn't spend the rest of her life paying the price. Can't she see the
positive effect she's having on the single father and his son? That they have
the right stuff to build a future? And Conard County is the perfect place to
start over!
Sweet romance between two people whose pasts keep them
from moving forward. Vanessa and her family left Conard County when she was a
child after her father lost his money and his ranch to a scamming friend. That
same friend also scammed many of the other townspeople, leaving her dad feeling
responsible that they had followed his lead. Those feelings of guilt haunted
her father and destroyed his will to live. His attitude also affected Vanessa and
her view of the town; she never wanted to go back and face the expected scorn.
Then she inherited a house from the man who caused all the trouble.
Tim was a local contractor who was hired to inspect the
house and make the repairs necessary before the house was listed for sale. He
is a widower with a young son and still grieves the loss of his wife.
I liked Tim. He's an all-around nice guy who was
sensitive to Vanessa's feelings about being back in Wyoming. He is a terrific
father to Matthew. Some wonderfully realistic scenes between the two of them
reminded me of my own kids when they were young. I liked Vanessa, too. She had survived
a rough childhood brought about by her parents' inability to deal with what had
happened to them. She was buttoned up emotionally at the beginning but went
through some pretty significant changes by the end.
I enjoyed the development of the relationship between Tim
and Vanessa. There were sparks between them from the beginning though they
tried to ignore them. Vanessa had no intention of staying long enough to get
involved, and Tim wasn't sure about risking his heart again. Tim was protective
of Vanessa from the moment he met her. I liked the way that he invited her to
stay with him so that she wouldn't be alone or in a sketchy motel during the
blizzard. He wasn't sure why he felt that way but was willing to go with it. I
liked how he encouraged her to open up about her feelings regarding the house
and her fears about encountering people affected by the scam, and how he helped
her face those feelings. He got her involved in working on the house which enabled
her to resolve some of her feelings about it and its previous owner. He didn't
expect her to wiggle her way past the walls around his heart. I loved how the
time spent with her helped him move past the grief and to see that he was ready
to move on with his life. Vanessa had some deeper issues to resolve. Thanks to
her childhood, she had learned to keep her emotions locked up, though she
hadn't realized that was what she did. The time spent with Tim and Matthew made
her realize that she had been hiding for most of her life. Her journey of
self-discovery was sometimes painful to see, and it occasionally created some
awkwardness between her and Tim. I liked Tim's patience as she worked through
those feelings. The ending was sweet as they pursued their growing connection,
though I am a little confused as to their future path. Hopefully, they'll make
appearances in later books so I can see how it turns out.
While I enjoyed this book a lot, I find that I prefer the
Conard County books from the suspense line more. There seems to be more intensity
to both the stories and the relationships. However, it won't stop me from
reading all of the Conard County books.
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