Cowboy SEAL Redemption: Navy SEAL Cowboys Book 2 by Nicole Helm

          My mom’s and my method of whether or not I should read a romance did not work this time.  I say this because I very much felt like throwing this book in aggravation.  Usually, it’s the hero driving me crazy that makes me feel this way.  This time it was the heroine.      

Image provided by Sourcebooks.

         Former Navy SEAL Jack Armstrong is not happy.  His mother has called to let him know she and the family are coming to the ranch he is working on.  Among this group will be his brother, his brother’s wife, and their son.  Three people Jack definitely does not want to see.  That’s because his brother, Mike, is married to Madison, Jack’s ex-fiancée.  If that weren’t weird enough, the two of them got together while Madison was still engaged to Jack, and while Jack was serving in the military.  On top of this, Jack had to find out about their relationship from his father, along with the fact that Madison was expecting Mike’s child.  Neither Mike nor Madison would tell Jack themselves.  So, dealing with these two, plus their young son, is not exactly what Jack wants to do.

         This is why Jack asks bar owner Rose Rogers to pretend to be his girlfriend.  He needs everyone convinced he has moved on with his life, even though in many ways he has not.  At least he hasn’t until he really gets to know Rose.  Then he falls for her hard.  Rose falls for him as well, except, unlike Jack, she fights her feelings every step of the way.

           In exchange for Rose pretending to be Jack’s girlfriend, Rose asks Jack to be a bouncer at her bar twice a week.  Her father has been released from prison, and she wants to be sure he doesn’t darken the bar’s door.  Jack doesn’t know the man he is watching for is Rose’s father.  He just knows the face of who to keep out, making it one more item on the long list of things Rose does not tell Jack about herself.

           Despite their pretend dating, there is a lot Jack doesn’t know about Rose.  He finds out about her violent childhood, but he has zero knowledge about any of her sisters, or how Rose blames herself for the abuse that happened to them.  The abuse is why Rose thinks she is such a horrible person and doesn’t deserve someone like Jack.  It’s why when things change between them, she tries to run away and hide forever.

          In the last book I wanted to kick Alex.  This time I wanted to kick Rose.  She kept trying to push away a great guy like Jack based on information that was only partially true.  Instead of learning their whole childhood story from her sisters, Rose acts only on her experiences and perceptions.  This has her not only push away a great man, but act meanly towards him as well.

        Still, despite pushing Jack away, Rose does stand up for him against his family.  She punches Mike in the face when he blames Jack for the grenade that hurt Jack and his friends.  What follows is a great scene of Mike being told off by both Jack and his mother.  As much as I like this scene, I also really wanted ranch owner Becca to demand Mike off her land.  A friend of Jack’s, Becca didn’t want Mike and Madison to visit in the first place.  If she heard Mike blame Jack for the grenade, an event that also hurt her fiancé Alex, she would not be at all happy.   

         I may not have gotten the Becca scene I wanted, but I also did not get (Warning!  I’m going to ruin some of the storyline here) a sappy sweet, all is forgiven ending.  Instead, people got told off (why Mike and Madison thought they were the victims in all this, I don’t know), and Jack finally got some things off his chest.  There was a bit of a reconciliation that made me roll my eyes, but nothing too bad.  Still, I hope Mike and Madison do not reappear in the third book.