Cowboy SEAL Christmas: Navy SEAL Cowboys Book 3 by Nicole Helm

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           It only took me until page three before I became aggravated with Gabe.  Getting irritated that fast definitely made me wonder if I was going to make it all the way through the book.  But I kept going.  It was hard at times, but I reached the end, reading a good story along the way.              

                Gabe Cortez is good at putting on the charm and making it seem as though everything is all right.  That’s probably why he gets so irritated when therapist Monica Finley is able to see through his façade.  Not only that, she wants the true Gabe to come out.  This is not something Gabe wants to do.  He much prefers to have his inner self remain hidden.  This is why he fights Monica tooth and nail over her attempts to have him reveal himself.  He insults her, thinking this will push Monica away and she will stop her attempts.  This shows just how little Gabe knows this woman.

                An Air Force widow and the daughter of a Marine, Monica isn’t exactly going to flinch when a former Navy SEAL tries to throw his weight around.  In an effort to get Gabe to open up, she asks him to help her and her son Colin chop down a Christmas tree.  This is something Gabe does not want to do at all.  He only agrees on the condition that Colin does the chopping.  Gabe makes this stipulation to needle the over-protective mother, knowing how difficult it is for Monica to let her son go.  Still, not willing to back down from her intended mission, Monica reluctantly agrees.

                It is from this point that the relationship between Gabe and Monica starts to grow.  She also begins to let Colin have more freedom, to the extent that she lets him visit his grandparents on his own.  While Monica knows she will miss her son, she is going to put the week to herself to good use.  She is going to take the time to figure out how to be herself.  Not Monica the mother.  Not Monica the therapist.  Just Monica.

                A snowstorm alters these plans.  Gabe is at Monica’s cabin when the storm hits.  Stuck together for days, Gabe and Monica get to know each other better than they ever did before.  Things between them seem to be going in a good direction, although it is unclear as to what their relationship will be once the storm is over.  No longer forced together, and with Gabe’s reluctance to get close, they could easily go their separate ways forever.

                While I understand Gabe’s difficult childhood led him to being who he is, I do not agree with how he behaved towards others.  Acting distant … fine.  Being withdrawn?  Sure.  Treating others badly and being flat out mean?  No.  Absolutely not.  Despite what he went through, Gabe had no right to be so intentionally mean to people.  Especially to those who cared about him.

                The funny thing is, I wonder if Gabe realized at all how much his behavior was like his step-father and his childhood therapists that he hated so much.  He would manipulate people and treat them badly as his step-father did.  Then he would tell people how they should feel, tossing away what they did feel, which was the main objection he had to therapists because that is what they did to him.  Monica had a good comeback to when Gabe tossed her feelings aside.  Whether or not what she said stuck in his head, I still applaud her.  She said something I’m sure women around the world want to say on a frequent basis.  (I won’t tell you what that something is, though.  You have to read the book!)

                I’m not saying Gabe is a bad man.  There is a kind, caring person under the garbage he likes to spew.  I’m also not saying Monica is perfect.  She is over-protective and has a hard time turning off her therapist brain.  While I like Monica as a character, there was something physical I found interesting about her.  Unlike with practically every other romance, Monica was not a perfectly svelte woman.  She was built larger and had some additional weight on her, making her different from most romance heroines.

                The funny thing is, not long before I read this book, I was thinking how heroine’s in romances are never larger women.  Off the top of my head, I can think of only one other.  This makes it seem as though you have to be a certain size in order to find love.  Monica and Gabe show this does not have to be the case.

                With the book ending in a time five years later, I’m thinking Cowboy SEAL Christmas is the last of the Navy SEAL Cowboys series.  Even though I got aggravated with each book, I enjoyed the series and reading about the characters.  Each one was a good person who had problems.  Yet, despite these problems, they all got happy endings.  The endings were not perfect, as life isn’t, but they were happy.