Clandestine Christmas

A standalone story and the final book in the Covert Cowboys Inc. series. Chase Marsden, former playboy, now lives on the ranch he inherited from his grandfather. He had to spend 2 years there in order to inherit but now he loves living there. He’s befriended Sadie Lovely, a women with a past who is 15 years older, and credits her with helping him pull his life together. Sadie’s daughter died recently and she is now raising her grandson, Jake. Strange “accidents” have been happening to Sadie and Jake so Chase has hired Covert Cowboys Inc. to help provide protection for Sadie and Jake until they can figure out what’s going on. Kate Rivers is a former Texas Ranger, hurt on the job and medically retired. Now working for CCI, she has been sent her to provide the protection Chase requested for Sadie. She arrives in town just in time to witness a car running down Chase and Sadie. Chase has Kate come stay at his ranch while Sadie is in the hospital so she can help protect Jake. Chase is unaware of what happened when Kate was injured and doesn’t know why she can’t be around kids. This story held my interest right from the beginning. Kate and Chase are attracted to each other but things don’t really escalate too quickly. As they learn more about each other Kate finally trusts Chase enough to tell him her secret and he opens up about his former playboy lifestyle. There’s a lot of mystery and suspense in this story and there are plenty of suspects to choose from. The mark of s good mystery is not being able to figure out whodunit to early on and I didn’t guess the right one at all – which was great! I thought the story unfolded at a nice pace, not too fast and not too slow. Although this book is part of the Cover Cowboys Inc. series you don’t need to have read any of the other ones to enjoy this book. If you’ve been reading the series you will be happy that characters from earlier books make brief appearances in this one. Books by Elle James always provide me with an enjoyable escape and this one was a great way to spend a few hours away from my normal life. :-) I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I loved it