This Time Around

by Stacey Lynn

The blurb drew me in but the characters kept me.  I loved the pairing of the Hollywood hunk and the Rancher.
 With his personal life in tatters Hollywood heartthrob, Cooper heads for the hills, or at least the ranch, looking for nothing more than some quality downtime and anonymity after the media circus that has surrounded his newly single status after his marriage fell apart…not of his doing I may add.
Ranch life might not be for everyone but for Rebecca it is in her bones, it keeps her happy and with the death of not only her husband but her parents in her recent past she has plenty of nee to fill her day with what makes her happy…but will having a Hollywood star on her ranch make her happy or will it be a headache she can well do without?
Well, that is the question but I am sure she never considered that the part of her that would ache would be her heart because Cooper Hawke was a good guy, a genuinely nice man, who was struggling to deal with as much heartache as she was. So, would two broken hearts be able to heal each other or would the risk just be too great?
The connection was super, the fact that she was willing to engage, to show him the ropes ( literally, it is a cattle farm after all) was a twist on the norm, I have lost count of the number of cowboy books I have read when the guy gets the girl, this time the saddle was well and truly on the other horse! Through it all, they both learned to let their guards down and in doing so they were able to see that the pain for their losses was something that they would be able to close a door on.
I liked the element of trust that the story brought to the fore, the fact that they both had to learn to not only let go but to allow someone inside, to trust that they wouldn’t hurt you. I had a feeling that nothing they had was going to be easy won but I think I was mistaken because this was more than a romance, this was a meeting of minds, heart, and soul. These were two people who belonged together and that fate was determined to give its own helping hand too.