Sandy M’s review of The Cowboy Takes a Bride by Lori Wilde
Contemporary Western Romance published by Avon 27 Mar 12
What a delightful book this is. It’s also my first Lori Wilde read, and the fact she writes sexy, sensual, and fun cowboys makes it that much more enjoyable.
The opening scene sets the tone for the book, and what a riot it is. Mariah Callahan has made her way to Jubilee, Texas, to find out what her recently deceased father has left her in his will. Her plan is to get rid of it all and then hightail back to her life in Chicago. A life that has fallen apart and needs desperate mending. When her boss should have backed her up during a sexual harassment incident, she fired Mariah instead. So now Mariah hopes to make her dream of opening her own wedding planning business finally come true. But first she has to deal with the backlash of a father who loved his cutting horses more than he ever loved his daughter.
When she arrives at the ranch, she finds a cowboy – one good-looking, sexy thing – naked in a horse trough. How to take care of this situation? And the banter between them is just hilarious. I think this is the earliest I’ve ever laughed out loud reading a book. Joe is expecting Mariah. This is the daughter who didn’t give a shit about his best friend, her dad. Joe has gone through horrible loss in the last few years, including losing Dutch just weeks before. Thus his bender of last night, ending with his “bath” in that gold-plated trough. I have to share part of that conversation with you.
“I’m calling the cops,” she threatened, pulling her cell phone from her purse.
“Are you always this friendly?”
“Whenever I find a naked cowboy in my gold-plated horse trough I am. I’m pretty sure there’s laws against public nudity, even in this backwater place.”
“First off, I’m not naked,” he said.
She couldn’t stop herself from raking a gaze over his amazing body. “You look naked.”
“Appearances can be deceiving. For instance, you look stuck-up.”
“Sometimes appearances can be deceiving, but on the whole, I’ve found that generally what you see is what you get.”
“So you’re saying you are stuck-up?”
“I’m saying you look like a drunken derelict.”
“Hungover derelict,” he corrected. “I’m not drunk anymore.”
“Excuse me for missing the distinction. I’m sure your mother is so proud.”
“I have underwear on,” he offered.
“How comforting.” As if a little strip of soaking wet cotton cloth hid anything. Why she should find that even more tantalizing than full nudity, she had no clue, but she did.
And that bothered her, a lot.
“Secondly, this isn’t public,” the cowboy continued. It’s private property.”
“I know,” she said. Had she driven down a rabbit hole when she wasn’t looking and ended up in Wonderland? She half expected to see the White Rabbit pop up at any moment, muttering about being late. “My property.”
“Thirdly, it’s not your horse trough.” Her finger hovered over the keypad. Should she call the cops? By challenging him, was she making things worse? Maybe she should just walk away and let him get out of the horse trough at his own pace…
There’s some banter about the sheriff’s deputy just pulling up being a woman, and then they get back to the fact Mariah is upset because he’s in her horse trough, they’ve come full circle.
“It’s not your horse trough.”
“It is.”
“Nope, because it’s not your ranch.”
“It is and I can prove it.”
“It’s not and here’s the reason why. My name is Joe Daniels, this here is Green Ridge Ranch, and I have a sneaking suspicion you’re looking for Stone Creek.”
I actually should have stopped this scene after the appearances can be deceiving part, because that’s where I laughed the hardest, but until their relationship moves to the next level because of the heat between them, this all is the fun to be had whenever Joe and Mariah are together. Even after the tide turns for them, the banter turns too, becomes even more fun and intimate.
Mariah’s plans change a few times during her stay in Jubilee. First she wants out as fast as she can. She agrees to wait, though, a few months, until Christmas, when Joe enters his cutting horse in the local futurity. He knows he’ll win and he can pay her for the property. The amazing horse came from Dutch, in exchange for the Stone Creek Ranch. Then the longer Mariah stays, the more she gets to know the people, which you can’t help but do in small-town America, she begins to think maybe this life could be for her. Maybe her wedding planning business could work here. When she meets a couple of people to push her in that direction, she talks to the bank and gets her hopes up. But they’re dashed quite quickly when her history is revealed.
But this is where her relationship with Joe with becomes truly cemented in love. He offers to bring his men over to build her wedding chapel for her. And they get it built in no time. Mariah sees her dream coming to life before her eyes. Her barn is transformed into a reception hall. She even has a wedding to plan, and all goes off without a hitch. She’s well on her way now.
Interspersed in all of this is Joe’s feelings for his deceased wife. Theirs was a wild albeit short relationship, and he’s missed Becca terribly since her accident. The town also loved her to death. So every time Mariah comes up against Becca in Joe’s life, she takes a step back. Joe’s not ready for another relationship. There’s too much guilt, too much left-over love to deal with. He has to learn to let go, but when he tries it never works.
And there’s Mariah’s feelings for her father. The father she never really knew because he loved his horses more than he loved her. The father who left her and her mother behind years ago, who embarrassed her, who left her his ranch. At first she doesn’t understand how the people of Jubilee could love the man so much, but as she learns more about him, sees inside his heart, she begins to discover the person he was, and she’s sorry she missed knowing that man.
When disaster strikes, it strikes with a heavy hand. Both Joe and Mariah are hit, but it’s Mariah who loses the most. Which helps her make her decision to flee Jubilee in the end, along with other factors, of course.
We also get a side story with Joe’s sister-in-law, Ila, who has been in love with Joe for years, and Cordy, Joe’s right-hand man. Ila hasn’t given Cordy a second look because he’s shorter than she is, but he’s done with her ignoring him. He pulls out all the stops and makes her sit up and take notice, while also getting her to let Joe go. They’re a lot of fun.
The one thing I don’t like that much in the book are the parallels to Sleepless in Seattle. The references to it to help Joe with his feelings about being a widower are fine, but then it goes a little too far with the call-in show and all that follows, just like the movie. It really isn’t needed. The author does fine on her own, and I feel she would have kept doing fine with a true, straight course as she’d been doing all along. But all’s well that ends well, as they say.
This is a fun and funny read. The characters are charming, the folks next door, people you’d like to know. I like the slow-growing love between Joe and Mariah, despite their fears. I’m definitely going to be cracking open a few more Lori Wilde books.
Grade: A
Summary:
Welcome to Jubilee, Texas: where everyone knows everybody’s business—especially if that business is love!
Ex-champion bull rider turned cutting horse cowboy Joe Daniels isn’t quite sure how he ended up sleeping in a horse trough wearing nothing but this Stetson and cowboy boots. But now he’s wide-awake and a citified woman is glaring down at him. His goal? Get rid of her ASAP. The obstacle? Fighting the attraction he feels towards the blond-haired filly with the big, vulnerable eyes.
When out-of-work wedding planning Mariah Callahan learns that her estranged father has left her a rundown ranch in Jubilee, she has no choice but to accept it. Her goal? Redeem her career by planning local weddings. The obstacle? One emotionally wounded, hard-living cowboy who stirs her guilt, her heartstrings, and her long-buried cowgirl roots…
Read an excerpt.
