Blurb
Jake Matheson loves everything about ranching the Double-Bar-K, except for his father’s controlling nature. It’s bad enough the old man won’t step down and let him run things his own way. Now Holt has demanded that Jake find a wife—in the next thirty days. Jake knows just the woman he wants–Hannah Ashton–but they haven’t even gone on a date, let alone been together long enough for him to propose. He’ll have to work fast to secure her hand in marriage before his time is up.
Hannah Ashton loves the fifteen hundred pound bison she rescued from being the object of a trophy hunt. She’s grateful for Gladys’s temporary home on the Double Bar K—and for the chance it gives her to see Jake on a daily basis. But now Holt Matheson is threatening to kick Gladys off the ranch—or eat her!—unless Hannah spends fourteen consecutive nights with Jake. What they get up to together is their business, but if Hannah misses a night, it’s bye-bye bison.
Jake can’t believe Hannah has agreed to move into his cabin, but now his brother Ned is stirring up trouble, trying to break them up before he can propose. Hannah’s beginning to think it’ll be hard to leave the ranch when her fourteen nights are over—even if she’s heading to veterinary school. She’s falling for Jake–hard–but Jake wants a traditional wife, not a career woman.
Will a pregnancy scare unite Jake and Hannah in a common goal? Or will it drive them apart for good?
Review
In book six in the Cowboys of Chance Creek series, Hannah Ashton needs someplace to stash the bison she’d rescued from certain death. Luckily, the man she secretly longs for offers to let her keep Gladys, the bison, on his family ranch.
Jake Matheson lost his chance with Hannah a few months back due to him flirting with another woman, but now, Hannah is visiting his ranch all the time in order to see Gladys. Then his dad gives him an ultimatum—get married within a month or leave the ranch forever. Since he already wants Hannah, he sets off to marry her, expecting her to fall in line with his life plans. Too bad for him, she has plans of her own.
I liked Hannah and Jake, but I couldn’t stand the way they let his father, his brother Ned, and even his mother manipulate them. —– SPOILERS —– Holt, his dad, forced Hannah to become Jake’s maid (so she’d forget about going back to school and be a housewife as a woman should) and to share Jake’s bed, or he’d kill and eat Gladys. Ned is so jealous of Jake that he tries to come between Jake and Hannah. Lisa, his mother, is so dang sweet that no one can tell her no despite how badly they’re hurting inside, and she’s so blind to the way her husband treats his sons and the women they’re with.
Other than these members of the Matheson family, I loved most of the other characters in the series, especially the newcomers Mia and Fila, who will be paired with the remaining Matheson brothers. I hope Ms. Seton will find a way to turn Ned into a sympathetic character in his own book.
Overall, this is a good book, but be warned if you don’t like it when the main characters are stuck under somebody’s else thumb for the majority of the story.
3 Stars
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