Enjoyable story with plenty of plot twists and turns to keep me on the edge of my seat anticipating what would happen next. Texas Ranger Crawford Hunt is in family court to fight to regain custody of his daughter from his in-laws. Long story short, after the sudden death of his wife, Crawford gave temporary custody to his in-laws as he wasn’t quite up to the job of being a good parent. Unfortunately, his father-in-law has always hated him and is using Crawford’s past and even his present as a tool to label him as unfit so that Crawford loses custody permanently. When a gunman bursts into the courtroom firing several rounds striking the bailiff, Crawford does what he automatically is conditioned to do. He tackles the judge and shields her from the shooter. After the shooter takes off, Crawford pursues him and ends up on the roof with a man holding the gun. A SWAT sniper takes out the man holding the gun. Case closed, end of story, right? Nope…not even close.

It takes a while to get there but finally the story takes off when Crawford realizes the man who was killed by the SWAT officer is not the man firing the weapon in the courtroom. Who is this guy? How did he end up with the weapon? Naturally, more questions pop up and Crawford is trying to ensure the judge is protected while trying to convince local PD that he did not orchestrate the entire event in the first place. I had a bit of difficulty with that part as it seemed the local detectives came across as complete imbeciles and someone else is going to end up dead at this rate.

Throw into the mix that there is white hot chemistry between Judge Holly Spencer and Crawford and the fact that they are both eyewitnesses to a shooting make their one-on-one involvement on any level a conflict of interest. There appears to be no reason or connection between the man killed on the roof of the courthouse and Holly so that made investigating the motive and reason behind the attack all the more perplexing.

This story moved much slower than I normally like but once it kicked into gear, it was good. The attraction between Crawford and Holly was well written and gives the reader an excellent sense of the conflict they both feel but cannot deny their attraction. All of the characters are well developed and the story itself was credible.

The identity of the mastermind behind the attack is revealed early in the story but the connection between them and the target remained unclear until the end. Once that was revealed, I was a little disappointed as I was expecting something much more intense to match such a well-structured attack in an open courtroom.

My Final Verdict: This story wasn’t my favorite by this author, but fans of romance with suspense will find this enjoyable.

Sandra Brown has written some of my favorite romantic suspense novels. I look forward to her new releases every year. I think that seeing a lot of mixed reviews on this book put me off from reading it when I first received it, and that just proves that I should ignore reviews on Goodreads and read what sounds good to me. Now I wish I had read it sooner! Although I will admit that it did get a bit slow in the middle, hence my 4 star rating, I really loved the story and the romance between Holly & Crawford. Not to mention Crawford’s adoration of his daughter – SWOON. That story line alone is why this book is worth reading. The book was full of suspense and some great sexy times, and I really enjoyed it.