Synopsis

Jonah Coulter can’t stand to watch his former fiancée build a life with her one true love. That’s the way it always happens for him—second child of six, second choice for love. He’s relieved to escape his family’s ranch to search for the aunt of a lost child he rescued. At least little Anna needs him. She deserves to be reunited with her last living relative.

Patience Whitman fled from her past and the man who killed her late husband. Now she’s reinvented herself in the untamed Montana Territory. Relying on her gambling skills to survive, she’s determined to earn enough to buy independence from the constant threat of men—she’s never met one who isn’t greedy, controlling, or violent. But when a stranger shows up and says his brothers have taken in her orphaned niece, Patience must go after Anna no matter the cost.

As Jonah and Patience navigate the treacherous landscape of their pasts and little Anna’s future, they must confront their deepest fears and learn to trust each other. But when danger catches up to them, they must risk everything to claim the happily ever after they both crave.

(via Amazon)

Review

This book follows the perspectives of Patience (Patsy) Whitman and the second eldest brother, Jonah Coulter. It was an enjoyable experience finally seeing Jonah find his love after what happened in the previous book with him and Naomi. The whole Coulter family makes reappearances in this book with Two Stones and Heidi being the only two characters not being present.

The story takes place mainly on the ranch so I will not go into too much detail as it is the same beautiful Montana landscape as the previous books. There are more parts of the story that take place in Missoula Mills, and on the road to Fort Benton once again.

Patience Whitman is the aunt of Anna, the little girl that was found in the previous book, close by the ranch. Unaware of the series of unfortunate events that fell on her family, she was living her own life in the saloon earning her keep at Poker. Her bad relationship with her father as well as the murder of her husband had grown her into an untrusting woman with a rough exterior. She knew how to read people and protect herself with a loaded gun she carried with her at all times. When Jonah first finds her in Missoula Mills, she shows him the same skepticism when he mentions her niece, Anna. Eventually she agrees to return to the ranch where she begins to think about her life as Anna’s mom. She views how close her niece had gotten to the Coulter family, particularly with Naomi and Eric who had started regarding little Anna as their own daughter. Throughout the book, Patience is struggling to get to know Anna and even attempts to take her away from the ranch to start their life together. While Patience had good intentions, she was unable to shake the roots Anna had created at the ranch. Eventually she makes the right decision for both her and Anna. As she grows closer to Jonah, she realizes how much she missed out on positive male relationships, so she begins to open up to him and taking a future with him seriously. She remains a brave and selfless person in the book, keeping her own wits about her to protect herself and those she cares about.

Jonah Coulter is still reeling from having lost his relationship with Naomi, so he uses searching for Anna’s aunt as an excuse to leave the ranch for a while. He immediately begins doing whatever he can to bring that little girl her family back, taking months seeking out leads until he eventually finds Patience. His first interaction with her surprises him but he shows endless patience and understanding when it came to her immediate distrust of him. They fall into some danger along the way back to the ranch, in which Jonah begins to feel protective of Patience. As they start getting back into a routine with the rest of the family, his attraction to her grows but he is also aware that she had her own plans when it came to her and Anna’s future. He was willing to ignore his feelings and potential future with Patience, if it meant she would be free to follow her own path in life. Jonah continues to show his caring and loyalty towards those around him, volunteering to take Patience and Anna to Fort Benton, even if that would mean he would probably never see them again. When he finally comes to his senses, he takes the leap and shows his honest feeling towards Patience beginning the journey of his own happily ever after.

Patience and Jonah both have their relationship with God tested. Jonah struggles to turn and cleave to God’s guidance while Patience struggles with allowing God to forgive her. Similar to Angela in the 3rd book, she believes she had done too much bad to be ever forgiven. They both learn to draw closer to God and follow the path he had laid out for them. Their spiritual journeys were pretty sweet and relatable to read.

The romance, as with this whole series is slow-paced and natural feeling. They both had negative experiences with relationships and were not too quick to jump into another. They share some tender kissing at times which was swoon-worthy, with one bordering on some innocent spice lol Their relationship ends on a bit of a cliff hanger compared to the others, but plans were made to push their relationship to the next level.

To close out this book, there was finally a strong plot involving the Sapphires from their ranch so the next book shall be quite interesting with how that unfolds.

All in all, this was a great mid-tiered book in this series. While I still did not enjoy it as much as the third one, I thought it was better than the previous book. I hands-down plan on reading the next book as it seems to follow Gil as he becomes part of a fake-relationship trope in order to find a missing brother and save an innocent woman.