Justin made the ultimate sacrifice for his country, battling domestic terrorism, never the man he really was, using hate to avenge the death of his best friend. The friend he'd killed.
What he doesn’t count on is getting shot, and if he's going to die he wants it to be on Crooked Tree soil. Home.
Sam is as much a part of Crooked Tree as any of the families, and the offer to buy into the ranch is a dream come true. But falling for a hidden, secretive, injured man isn’t the way to keep his head in the game.
For over a decade, Justin believed that his family and friends were in danger. He let this belief turn him into a monster - a trained killer. When he finds out that it was all a lie, Justin is determined to break free of those who kept him in the dark. He knows it’s dangerous, but if his time is running out, he wants to see Crooked Tree Ranch one last time.
At the ranch, Sam has found a family, something that he hasn’t had since he was sixteen. Though surrounded by people who love and accept him, Sam yearns for someone to call his own. When he finds a badly injured man on ranch property, his first instinct is to help.
As Sam helps the man slowly heal, and revelations are made, he finds himself falling for Justin. But Justin doesn’t think he deserves Sam’s love, not after what he’s done.
After the way things ended in The Rancher's Son, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on Justin’s story. I wanted to know how he and Adam ended up in their situation. Plus, I took a liking to Sam and wanted him to get his HEA too.
The Crooked Tree Ranch has really grown on me over the past two books, so I enjoyed being back there. It was great to catch up with the couples from the previous books, and some of the secondary characters.
I’m a sucker for a hurt/comfort romance, so I really liked the first half of ‘A Cowboy’s Home’. When Sam first discovers Justin, Justin can barely walk on his own. As Sam helps nurse Justin back to health, the two develop a bond.
For Justin, Sam is the only person on the ranch who doesn’t see him through the goggles of a past life. On the other hand, Sam finds that he connects with Justin without much effort, something he’s never had before.
So I liked how Justin and Sam’s romance began. But I wasn’t entirely sold on their relationship after that. There was a lack of relationship development. Justin and Sam just go from tentatively acknowledging that they like each other, to wanting each other forever-and-ever.
Given that the two only spend a couple of days together, during which Justin is in no physical or mental condition to be thinking about a relationship, and then the two separate for a long time, I didn’t buy the depth of the feelings for one another.
In classic R.J. Scott fashion, the plot is as over-the-top as I would expect it to be. I just would have liked it to be tightened up some more. The revelations regarding Justin and Adam’s disappearance kept me interested, though they didn’t entirely make sense. There are big holes in the reasoning behind how the two got into the whole mess to begin with, and how Justin got roped in for over a decade, but then so easily broke free.
Overall, I’ve got mixed feelings about ‘A Cowboy’s Home’. I really enjoyed the first half, but Justin and Sam’s lacklustre romance, and a plot that required too much suspension of disbelief, meant that I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I thought I would.
A copy was provided in exchange for an honest review.
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