Series: Whitehorse Montana (Book 1)
A DEADLY SECRET AND A DEVASTATINGLY HANDSOME SHERIFF... HOW LUCKY CAN A GIRL GET?
It would just figure! Eve Bailey would have the rotten luck to drop in on a body and a thirty-year-old mystery. And darn it all, Carter Jackson would be the sheriff determined to take on the cold case--and Eve. In high school he had been one tall drink of water, and nothing had changed--not his smoldering eyes, his cowboy swagger or the way Eve felt about him. The Whitehorse sewing circle would surely be putting in overtime "quilting" sessions down at the community center, speculating whether Eve and Carter would have a second chance.
But gossip was the least of Eve's problems. One of their own was desperate to keep local secrets buried deep in the Montana mountains. There would be an old-fashioned showdown when the truth was revealed.... And anyone could get caught in the crossfire.
Good suspense with a nice second chance romance to go with it. After years away, Eve has returned home for a couple of reasons. One, she wants to find out what is going on with her parents, who appear to be having problems. Dad is living several towns away, claiming it's to be closer to his work, and Mom looks like she's carrying on with someone else. Two, she wants to finally get to the bottom of her questions about who she is. Eve has never felt like she fit in with the rest of the family.
The book started with a bang, as Eve rushed off after a confrontation with her mother about the man she saw sneaking out of the house. Eve was so upset that she rode off without taking the usual precautions when going riding. She was miles away from the ranch when she noticed bad weather coming fast. When the storm hit, she thought she heard someone moaning, but when she investigated, she found a crashed plane with a dead body in it - a plane that had been there for thirty years. When Eve's horse returned home without her, Lila called the sheriff and search parties were formed. Sheriff Carter Jackson was the one who found Eve as she made her way out of the ravine after the storm had passed.
The meeting between Eve and Carter was tense. They had been an item their senior year in high school until Carter betrayed her with another girl and got her pregnant. He did the "right thing" and married Deena, and Eve left Whitehorse right after graduation. Now Carter is divorced from Deena and still feels guilty about the way he treated Eve. He has also never forgotten his feelings for her. Meanwhile, Deena creates a whole host of headaches for him. Eve isn't particularly happy to see Carter, but she knows she has to tell him about the wreck and the body. Because of where it is, Eve has to show him or he'd never find it. There were still some sparks flying between Carter and Eve, and they weren't all antagonism.
I liked Carter and Eve, though each had their moments of irritating me. Carter has grown to be an honorable man. He stuck out his marriage far longer than he should have, just because he took his vows seriously. I wasn't happy about the way he had treated Eve way back when, but he did grow and mature. He is also a bit stubborn and refused to give up on the investigation into the plane crash, even though he suspected that he wouldn't like some of the things that would come to light. I liked his protectiveness toward Eve, even when she resisted him. Eve has a fair amount of stubbornness of her own, as well as a tendency to be impulsive. She hasn't been able to let go of her suspicions about her place in the family and is determined to find out the truth. She also rushes into actions without thinking about ramifications, such as her flight on the horse or her break-in at the doctor's office. But she also loves her family, even though they frequently frustrate or confuse her.
The suspense of the story was very good. Eve's discovery of the plane and body stirred up a lot of questions. Who was the dead man, and why were he and the plane never reported missing? What happened to the pilot, and had anyone else been on the plane? I was a little mad at Eve when she found something on the plane that she recognized and took it without telling Carter about it until later. The evidence discovered on the plane caused more questions than it answered. Had there been babies on board? Was the plane being used to run drugs? Is there a connection to Carter's father and grandfather? At the same time, Eve's search for the truth about her birth is causing problems for her. Her conversations with her grandmother, who suffers from Alzheimer's, may have confirmed that Eve is adopted, but can she trust her grandmother's memory?
I was glued to the pages as the answers to the questions were revealed. I could sense Carter's worry when he talked to his father about the plane and who it belonged to. He could sense that his father was hiding something. As the evidence from the plane was investigated, there were some interesting twists, including the identity of the dead man and information about the hair in the brush found on board. Meanwhile, Eve has stirred up a hornet's nest with her search. What she learned from her grandmother gave her the incentive to break into the doctor's office looking for evidence about the day of her birth. What she found made her question everything her mother had told her. She also encountered someone else who had also broken in. Then on the way home, someone shot at her truck, causing her to wreck. Fortunately for her, Carter had spotted her and came to her rescue. Things really started to heat up as the dead man was identified, and Eve kidnapped from her home. There were some interesting twists and connections revealed as Eve confronted her kidnapper. I loved that she didn't cave into the fear and that she assisted in her own rescue. The questions about Eve's birth were answered, but there is a bigger mystery that was left hanging. I will definitely have to track down the other books to see how it turns out.
There were some other things going on at the same time. Carter's ex-wife wants him back, and she's willing to do anything to make that happen. Eve's mother, Lila, has to face up to some mistakes she made in the past. There were times when I didn't like her at all, and others where I did. There was also an interesting turn of events involving Carter's dad.
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