Review: This Time Next Year
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 12 5, 2011
All Brenna Keating wants to do is get to her beloved grandmother's house for Christmas before she goes to Africa to use her nursing skills in a clinic, but Mother Nature has other plans. Driving in the Blue Ridge Mountains, she finds herself in a bad snowstorm. When she swerves to miss a deer, she hits a snow bank. Cold and a little disoriented, she is stuck in her car. But soon, a very big, sexy man wearing a Stetson and riding a horse rescues her and takes her to his cabin.This sexy cowboy is actually Dr. Dillon Craig. Home from Afghanistan, he still lives with the horrors he saw on the battlefield and with the ghosts of the men he was unable to save. This small mountain town has taken him in as one of their own, and in return, he makes house calls to the elderly residents, as well as runs a medical clinic. He knows Brenna's grandmother very well and has learned a lot about Brenna over the years, but this is the first time he has met her. Being stuck together in his cabin for a few days while the storm passes forces Dillon to talk about his past -- and Brenna to re-evaluate her future.I really enjoyed this story. Although this is the first time these two have met, they become familiar with each other quickly because Dillon knows Brenna's grandmother. Brenna pushes Dillon to open up, something he is not used to, but eventually it starts to subdue some of the demons he brought home from Afghanistan. Likewise, he pushes Brenna to decide what is more important: family or work. Through this entire discovery, a romance develops, and it turns into some very sexy romance scenes indeed! I also really liked how things play out in the end. Overall, a nice job of making this relationship realistic (and sexy!) in a short story.