This was a fun little book. I liked both the hero, Cal, and the heroine, Della. There were a few times though when I questioned the hero's actions. Punishing her for wanting to go to a dance for example. Not that he hit her or anything. He just took her to a barn dance and made her dance the square dances without any instruction or rest to teach her better than to want to kick up her heels?

Then he says "Had enough?" he asked softly. "Yes, thank you!" she bit out, quite understanding the silent message: in other words, so much for her liking dancing. There would be no more parties or dancing while she resided at Rimmer's Way, and if Cal didn't see to that Della would!

Heaven forbid she might want to see a movie someday.

Still he did say that he was bad with women. And he definitely was if he couldn't see that having the cute but malicious neighbor girl spend every waking hour with them was sabotaging his marriage.

Also large parts of the book were covered by words like Cal spent the next week trying to court her but then gave up. Show me some of those courting scenes. For heavens sake that's what makes a romance not lots of scenes with a jealous school girl. That sort of thing was the biggest reason it didn't score higher for me. More show, less tell. I did feel the ending was a bit too short and simplistic too. But I guess it matched the tone of the book overall.

So I enjoyed it and will probably try more by the author but it had some flaws. ( )