TERESA
BODWELL
Synopsis
from Goodreads: Mercy
Clarke had no trouble getting a hundred head of cattle to Abilene.
Getting back home through five hundred miles of untamed frontier is
something else again, especially with a handsome gambler like Thad
Buchanan tagging along. He swears to pay her in gold if she guides
him to Fort Victory, but she doesn't quite trust his fine manners and
gentlemanly ways. And then there's that look in his eyes --- he could
make her forget that she's sworn off men for good ...
As Thad
sees it, the same rules apply to playing poker and loving women: it's
all about knowing when to hold 'em. And come to think of it, a pretty
lady like Mercy Clarke would fit very nicely in his arms. Now, if she
could be persuaded to put down that rawhide whip and tell him exactly
what she has in mind, he has no doubt they could come to an agreement
that will satisfy them both. No doubt at all ...
Stats
for my copy: Mass market
paperback, Zebra Books, 2005.
How
acquired: Bought.
My
thoughts: I’d
not heard of this author before, but I picked this book up because of
the cover. The picture is a little misleading, in that I did not
realize looking at the cowboy on the cover that he was a Civil War
era cowboy, not a contemporary cowboy. But I got over that pretty
quickly and settled into the story.
We
first meet Mercy and her younger sister, Miranda, as they are driving
a herd of cattle from Colorado to Kansas, along with two hired hands.
Mercy is a strong, serious, determined young widow, who I judged to
be in her mid-twenties. She’s been running her ranch alone since
her husband died and her father was severely injured. She’s
borrowed money from a neighboring rancher, and she needs to get a
good price for her cattle in order to repay the loan by its due date,
which is fast coming up. If she doesn't pay, she’ll lose her ranch,
and that is what drives her. She is all about that ranch, and being
the boss of that ranch. Miranda is 19, a typical young, flighty girl.
The two hired hands are surly, and resent taking orders from a woman.
Then
we meet Thad, a name I almost dislike just because I never know
whether it should be pronounced with the th sound, or pronounced as
Tad. Which shouldn’t matter when you’re reading silently but I
like to know the proper pronunciation of names. I finally settled on
Thad with the th sound, since his full name is Thaddeus, and you
wouldn’t pronounce that as Taddeus. I don’t think. Thad has an
unspecified injury that affects his arm/shoulder at times, and his
father and brother both died in the war. After the war he worked on
the family ranch with his mother, and after she died he ended up
losing the ranch. Now he’s trying to get to Colorado, where his
sister and her family live, and he’s looking for someone to guide
him through the unfamiliar territory.
Mercy
flat out refuses to let him travel back to Colorado with her, but as
luck would have it her two hired hands demand their money and inform
her they are not returning with her, leaving her to face the long
trip back with just her sister. The fact that they would be two women
traveling alone doesn’t seem to bother her, but she does prefer to
travel with more than two people as there is safety in numbers,
especially when you’re carrying a lot of cash with you. And as luck
would also have it, Thad’s sister happens to be Mercy’s best
friend. She’s often heard Clarisse talk about her “baby brother”,
and even though she wants nothing to do with Thad, who she thinks is
a no-account drunken gambler, she also knows how much it would mean
to Clarisse to see her brother, so she grudgingly agrees to take him
with her, along with another young man who is friends of her family.
With the understanding, of course, that she is the boss.
I
liked Thad right off the bat. What little money he has comes from his
poker winnings, so he does spend time in saloons, but he doesn’t
drink, and does not consider himself a gambler, as he only plays
poker, which he explains is a game of skill. Where Mercy’s mission
in life at the moment is her single-mindedness drive to sell her
cattle and return home with enough money to save her ranch, Thad is
single-mindedly determined to find someone to guide him to Colorado.
His sister has told him she knows a widow who would be a perfect wife
for him, and the thought of marrying and starting a family and
working a ranch again appeal to him. When Thad mentions that to
Mercy, she speculates that Clarisse probably intends to introduce
Thad to a widow they both know who has two young sons, and she spends
some time telling Thad about her. Despite the fact that Mercy is also
a widow, it never seems to occur to either her or Thad that maybe
Clarisse meant Mercy, though I assumed so immediately.
I was
caught up in the story from the beginning, and enjoyed Mercy’s and
Thad’s interactions. They’re attracted to each other of course,
and Mercy is determined to not acknowledge that. She’s been hurt
before, and she doesn’t plan to ever marry again. From the brief
mentions of her husband, you get the impression that he was not kind
to her and that their relationship was not on good footing (though
later in the story we get a better look at their relationship), and
she is bent on protecting her heart now. And even when she admits to
herself that she likes Thad, she’s still set on not getting
involved with him, because he wants a family, which she can’t give
him. I’m particularly drawn to stories where the hero and heroine
bicker with each other and find each other frustrating and trying,
and this book had that in spades.
And
then I was suddenly jolted out of the story when, on page 88, the
author tells us “Thad was only twenty-three, but sometimes he felt
like an old man.” Twenty-three! I was picturing him as being in his
late twenties, maybe even thirty. At this point Mercy’s age has not
been mentioned, but if Thad is only twenty-three, then Mercy is
probably also younger than I thought she was!
After
I got over that shock, I settled back into the story. And finally,
about fifty pages later, Mercy, too, is surprised when Thad tells her
he is twenty-three, saying “Really? I thought you were closer to my
age.” She then reveals she is twenty-seven. So I was right about
her, at least. But I had to take a few second to wrap my mind around
this, as I am not a fan of older woman/younger man. However, I
realized at this point I’m way to invested to care about that, and
thinking back now I like that the author revealed their ages the way
she did. It added some realism to the buildup of their relationship.
On the
trail home there are plenty of adventures, as they are attacked, more
than once, and grow closer, and push each other away, and get closer
again. And by the end of the book I was getting a little weary of the
constant push and pull and wanted to knock their heads together and
tell them to just admit they want to be with each other. Everything
resolved nicely in the end, if a bit pat, and I really enjoyed this
sweet western romance.
