July 6, 2009
In this first book of a new cowboy trilogy, prolific author Brown (To Trust
) makes plenty of amateur mistakes. Milli Torres returns to her grandfather’s Texas ranch only to find that the next door neighbor is the man who fathered her child during a one-night stand two years ago. Beau “Lucky” Luckadeau is too dense to connect the scrappy cowgirl to a woman he’s convinced was only a drunken hallucination. When Beau finds out he’s the father of Milli’s daughter, the requisite romancing begins. Stock obstacles hinder the relationship, from Beau’s gold-digging fiancée to Milli’s overly dramatic five-hour flounce off before a country song convinces her to turn around, but the conventional outcome is never in doubt. Shifting points of view and flat characters make this a decidedly subpar addition to the genre.