Synopsis
from Goodreads: At
thirty-two Dev is "mostly retired" from Raines
Investigations, content to run operations from his sprawling Arizona
home. But Dev has never been able to say no to a beautiful woman, so
when Lark Delaney comes to him for help, the former U.S. Army Ranger
from Wind Canyon gets back in the game.
Lark
is sexy, successful and dedicated to tracking down the baby girl her
sister gave up for adoption. It should be a straightforward case, but
it's not long before Dev uncovers a shady adoption ring and worse—the
child's parents have been murdered and the little girl has been
taken.
As
the case grows dangerous and Lark needs him more than ever, Dev can't
ignore his growing attraction for her. He also can't trust his
judgment with women or the emotions he's long-since buried. But
there's a chance, if he gets this right and saves Lark's niece, that
he'll end up saving himself, too.
Stats
for my copy:
Mass market paperback, published by Mira Books, 2011.
How
acquired:
Through Book Mooch.
First
line:
He had everything he ever wanted.
My
thoughts: I
went into this book with a little trepidation, knowing that the
heroine was going to hire Dev to help her track down the child her
sister had placed for adoption four years earlier. Knowing, from the
synopsis, that the adoption probably was not conducted legally. This
is one of my hangups. I work in the adoption field, and I hate
seeing stories, on film or in print, that give adoption a bad name.
And lines like this, nineteen pages in, did not help:
Once they located the adoption agency, the address of the adoptive parents should be easy enough to find. Assuming the agency people could be persuaded to give up the information.
The
only thing that would persuade the staff at our agency to divulge a
family's address would be a warrant. Well, maybe a gun to the head
would do it for some of our staff. But we would never just hand that
information over to anyone who wanted it.
Several
pages later, after talking to another girl who also placed a child,
and was currently pregnant and placing that child as well, albeit
with a different agency, Lark wonders how much the girl earned, and
Dev speculates:
“She's blonde and blue-eyed. Caucasian babies are in high demand. Twenty thousand, maybe more. It isn't against the law – not if the agency is licensed and following all the state mandates.”
Maybe
that's not illegal in Arizona, but it sure is in my state. We can pay
a birth mother's living expenses – within reason and with a judge's
signature on a court order – but we can't give her money, and she
does not get paid to place the child.
And
now I'm probably just being a little nitpicky, but a few pages later
they walk into a daycare center, and while Dev approaches the
receptionist desk, Lark wanders around the play area, and then talks
to a little boy. I cannot imagine any daycare in the country where a
person can just walk in off the street and roam around among the
children.
Anyway,
after it was stressed a couple of times that Lark only wanted to be
sure her sister's child was in a safe and loving home, and had no
intention of disrupting that, I began to relax a little and enjoy the
story. And then when they finally went to that home, just in time to
see masked men fleeing after having gunned down the adoptive parents
and the household staff, while terrified little Chrissy was hiding in
a closet, I was completely hooked. And after that, it wasn't about
adoption (other than Lark of course eventually adopting Chrissy). It
was about drug cartels, and Mexican criminals, and lives being in
danger, and me turning pages faster and faster.
I
loved Dev and Lark together. Lark is a successful businesswoman,
running her own company and making and selling designer handbags. Now
that she has Chrissy to raise, the last thing she needs is a
relationship. Dev is the youngest of the Raines brothers, and after
his fiancee broke up with him days before their wedding several years
ago, he doesn't trust women and is determined to never fall in love
again. They may say they love you, but how can you know if they
really mean it? The answer is to have fun with pretty women but never
get serious with them. The attraction between Dev and Lark is
palpable, but Lark is Dev's client, and he doesn't mix business with
pleasure, so she's off limits as one of his flings. When they do
finally give in to the chemistry between them, it was pretty
sizzling.
We
meet several men who work for Dev, or who served with him in the
military and are called upon now to help out. The action never lets
up as Dev, Lark, Chrissy, and other men are thrown into one intense
situation after another. Of the three books about the Raines
brothers, this one is definitely my favorite. The next three books in
the Against Series feature three of the other men involved in this
one, and I am eager to read all of them. So eager in fact, that I've
already placed an order through Barnes & Noble for the next book,
along with two other books in the Against series, and the first book
in the Brodies of Alaska series.
So
despite my initial misgivings, this was a very good suspenseful story
with a complex plot. There were lots of scenes that made me either
laugh out loud or grin like an idiot, and when the danger was over
and Lark and Dev were coming to grips with their feelings for each
other, there were some scenes that literally made me cry. I can't get
the next book quick enough.
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