Book five of the R.J. Scott’s Montana series gives us an in-depth look at two characters who have made multiple quick appearances throughout the series so far. We have Rob, Justin’s (from A Cowboy’s Home) former Navy Seal ex-black ops teammate who has become the guardian of his two nephews but is facing impending death due to lead poisoning from a bullet, and Aaron, Ryan’s (from Snow in Montana) younger brother who is also ex-military and one of the local paramedics.
They meet at a car crash and have beef with each other right away. They continue to have been with each other in the whole alpha-alpha who’s going-to-top MM Romance trope (I’ll get back to that).
Where the story really worked for me was Rob’s nephews. He came to Crooked Tree Ranch because he knew Justin was there and that there were families there that could potentially raise his nephews in a good home so he could go off and die from lead poisoning. He wrapped up all the loose ends from his and Justin’s time on the outside of the law and has promised Justin no one is coming for them and he’s asked Justin to provide or find a home for his nephews. Rob shows so much growth from the beginning to the end of the novel and not just because he falls in love with Aaron, but how he learns from everyone else at the ranch and how his relationships with his nephews changed.
There were a few tear-jerker moments and a few harrowing moments that really amped up the drama (sometimes unnecessarily) in this book. Those moments weren’t integral to Aaron and Rob’s relationship, but they had an impact and brought the story forward for the most part. The ending was by far the best as Justin convinces Rob to at least try to live for his nephews and Aaron. So. Good.
The beef I have to pick with this book and so many of the others looking back is the overall verse-baiting Scott does throughout the series. There are so many times when both characters are like “I’m going to top you” or “I want to bottom for you” and it never pans out. They pick one position and stick to it. There is nothing more annoying to me in the MM Romance genre than that. Don’t talk the talk and then have your characters back down. Now I’m writing this quite a while after I finished, and this book may have been the exception but I’m not going back to re-read it to remember if it was. There were definitely some wrestling moments and fighting for dominance and I want to say each submitted at one point and I’m like 80% certain they both walked the walk, but for the most part in this series they didn’t and that just annoyed me to no end. This isn’t the most egregious one I read recently (don’t worry I’ll definitely blast those authors shortly), but I had noted it by this novel.
Recommendation: Worth the read, but you might not want to slog through the four books ahead of it. This book, Crooked Tree Ranch, and Snow in Montana are probably my favorites from the series. All three had good stories that could’ve stood on their own without the rest of the series or background characters. Don’t get me wrong they made the stories fuller, but I could’ve done without the drawn-out drama of Adam and Justin even if it was integral to meeting many of these follow-up characters. There were some issues with the series overall that came to light reading them back-to-back, but for a self-published work, the series as a whole receives pretty high marks from me.
Opening Line: “Rob Brady knew three things. His sister was dead, he was the guardian to her two boys, and he was stuck in Hell.”
Closing Line: “Normal stuff. Real life. Family.” (Whited out to avoid spoilers, highlight to read.)
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