Law & Beard

by Lani Lynn Vale

This brought everything that I hoped a story about Big Papa ( aka Steel Cross) , President of the Dixie Warden Rejects MC would bring because having read the other books, I knew that whilst each of the other guys had brought their alpha game out to play…I was also in no doubt that they learnt everything they knew from Steel, and darn it he was a man that took  no prisoners and coveted nothing, everything he has he loves and everything that he had lost, he was prepared to accept as a life lesson and move on…especially the numerous ex-wives!

Not content with being the club President, Steel was also the chief of police and general all around good guy. There was nothing in his town that he wasn’t aware of, so the cute single woman that now lived with her kids across the street from him had not gone unnoticed but far from looking for any complications, they both seemed determined to keep their distance…but a certain rebellious daughter seemed determined to ensure that their paths continued to cross more than either of them would have wanted.

Conleigh, wasn’t a bad kid but she just seemed to attract all the wrong attention, but with Big Papa on her side she at least had an ally that she could rely on but that didn’t mean that she could escape the wrath of her mother Winnie when she gets continually returned home by the sexy as sin older man that just happens to live across the street.

The proximity and constant contact meant that there was not much that either of them could do fight the connection that they shared, despite the age gap they were on a collision course and…darn it what I ride they took to get there.

I liked that Steel was willing to give Conleigh the chance to explain her misdemeanours and the way he was with her and her little brother Codi, was enough to make my heart swoon. But as you might expect nothing was easy for them, they both had complicated pasts, exes that were less than stellar individuals and in Winnie case she also had health issues to contend with but neither of them were the type of person to shirk the hard stuff, so once they got their head around what was going on they did what they had to make it work for them…. right up until what they had slipped through their fingers and decisions had to be made.

I understood why Winnie felt the way she did but I had no doubt that Steel would have the final word on the subject …and boy did he!

Great characters, and I would expect nothing else from Ms Vale, the social aspect of the story spoke to me, the pressure of divorce and starting again, the pressure of making ends meet and the pressure of just doing the right thing.

Both Winnie and Steel faced their pressures and so much more on a daily basis and that made this a story about good people getting what they truly deserve…happiness.