Review: Sweetly moving tale
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 10 23, 2013
The woman responsible for the old heartbreak he's still nursing goes into labor at the bar he's tending. Can he set aside his bitterness and help bring another man's baby into the world?Bartender and former rodeo cowboy Marshall Dekes tried to ignore her presence across the high bar top separating them at the Lonesome Steer Honky Tonk, then he finally allowed her to make a rushed and abbreviated apology before ripping her apart. But Amy deserved it. She'd broken his heart and married someone else the day he'd arrived in Fort Worth to propose to her. Just because her husband was dead didn't mean he'd ever consider taking back the woman who'd killed his dreams, so she'd better not even be thinking along those lines.But when Amy cried out and doubled over as he turned to walk away, Marshall found himself rushing to her side only to discover Amy was very pregnant and in a sudden, hard labor. Making her comfortable and holding her hand as she strained to give birth to another man's baby in the bar's back office was almost surreal. By the time the paramedics left, he'd made up his mind he'd be crazy to cut up his peace worrying over a woman who'd preferred another man.Due to her mother's stratagems and failing health, Amy found herself in a marriage that provided security but not love. She'd never have made such a terrible mistake if her mother hadn't deemed her romance with Marshall as no more than a rodeo cowboy's passing fancy. Amy knew she'd never been the kind of wife her husband Hank needed, and as Hank's aspirations for a partnership at the Fort Worth law firm where he worked crashed, so did their marriage, which ended with the car accident that took Hank's life. A very pregnant Amy had only come to Redemption to get some needed baby items from her cousin Andee, but once she discovered Marshall worked in the honky tonk forty-five minutes away, she knew she couldn't leave without asking the man she'd never stopped loving to try and forgive her.Yet, nothing to do with their broken dreams was ever as cut and dried as either Marshall or Amy thought. And since Amy's cousin had convinced her to stick around for a little while, Amy attempted another apology to Marshall that the stubborn man aborted just as coldly as he did the night she gave birth. But somehow, though they'd reached a stalemate, Marshall and Amy found the dreams they once shared had never died; they'd only been suppressed by their own fears and stubborn pride, as well as a couple of old ghosts that no longer had the power to keep dreams from coming true.In a short but well-rounded 138 pages, Stacy Dawn delivers a sweetly moving tale of love redeemed and hearts mended that is sure to leave her reader's enraptured and in search of her other titles. As for her hero and heroine, Amy's attempts at atonement and Marshall's determination to remain emotionally distant are rather heart-wrenching and exhibit Ms Dawn's ability to engage the reader's psyche, which she does extremely well. So well did I understand the dilemma of these characters that there were several times that I would have liked to have hit the stubbornly proud Marshall over the head with a brick or simply had Amy blurt out her feelings and leave Marshall with his mouth agape as she walked away. But never did I find these characters weak or exasperating.Ms Dawn just had me rooting too hard for a happy ending for a well-deserving couple. Plan to complete this novella in one sitting and have a few tissues handy.Sweet.Reviewed by Angie Just Read...for TheRomanceReviews.com