Cowboys & Angels #3
189 Pages
Blurb
A gentle bartender might have what it takes to mend a
relationship-phobic detective’s broken heart… but first they have to admit
they’re dating.
Keenan Day could kick himself for letting the hot, dark-haired stranger he met outside a strip club get away. Instead of a phone number, he gets a punch in the face—from the boyfriend of his prospective employer at the Cowboys and Angels bar. When two cops come to check up on him, one is the sexy stranger, Detective Nate Gordon.
The initial attraction hasn’t cooled, and though Nate is leery of commitment, one hookup turns into another until they’re seeing each other in everything but name. After a recent nasty breakup, Nate balks at being part of a couple, and Keenan agrees, even though that’s all he’s ever wanted.
Just as they reach a standstill, a crisis shows them what their friends have known all along—they’ve already moved way past hookups. Now they just have to decide how to move forward.
Review
Slow Dating the Detective is the third and, as far as I know, last installment in the Cowboys
& Angels series, and it’s a delightful, at times touching and often
steamy, read.
To be fair, it should be surprising I use the word delightful
because these two men are guilty of committing what I consider a most serious relationship
crime, not communicating, for the longest time.
But let me start at the beginning and the meeting of two men
who are obviously attracted to each other, but don’t get the opportunity to act
on it. The frustration of that first encounter appears to be something that
will stay with them, even once they do meet up and act on that attraction.
There’s no doubt these two men find it impossible to ignore each other, but
it’s just as clear neither of them is sure what to make of that fact.
Keenan is a charming but somewhat broken man, who’s lost a
lot of his confidence after an accident that also ruined his career and future
plans. When he also loses his current job, his life appears to spin out of
control until he’s offered a job in Cowboys & Angels.
Nate is a bit more of a dark horse in this book since the
story is told from Keenan’s perspective and we only get to guess at his
motives, thoughts, and feelings. Nate makes it perfectly clear that he doesn’t
date, and Keenan takes his word for that, despite the fact that they spend more
and more time together going on what closely resembles…dates.
What follows is a process of one step forwards two steps back
that leaves Keenan questioning everything: Nate, his feelings, what he wants,
and what he is prepared to put up with. As is so always the case, Nate and
Keenan need a shocking and devastating crisis as well as a good talking to from
people close to them before they open their eyes, trust their hearts, and, at
last, start talking about things that matter.
As I said, this was a delightful read. It was wonderful to
reconnect with characters from Speed Dating the Boss and the cast of secondary
characters, young and old, were vivid and charming. While there were one or two
moments I would have loved to hit Nate and Keenan’s heads together to get them
to see sense, there far more moments when I smiled
Long story short, I thoroughly enjoyed this story from start
to finish.
I just discovered, to my shock, that I somehow managed to
miss reading Secretly Dating the Lionman, which is an oversight I intent to fix
shortly.
