Cowboy Come Home

by Eve Gaddy

A bittersweet reunion. A second chance at happiness. The daughter who may never forgive them both. Champion bronc rider Jake Rollins never intended to go back to Happy, Texas and its memories of lost love. That changes when he meets Leigh and suspects she’s his daughter. Jake arrives in Happy determined to get to know her and to find out the truth. Only problem is, Anna Connor, Leigh’s mother, doesn’t want him in their lives. At first she won’t even admit he’s Leigh’s father. Sixteen years ago, Jake left Anna with a phone call telling her he'd married another woman. Devastated and pregnant, Anna married Jake's best friend, Carl Connor. Together they raised the daughter Jake never knew about. But Anna's a widow now and even more irresistible than she'd been as a girl. Will it be enough for Jake to tell Anna that leaving her was the worst mistake he ever made? Can he convince her he's changed? Jake and Anna fall in love again, but it's far from smooth sailing. Leigh's response to the news that Jake is her biological father is anything but good. Jake and Anna must decide between their love for each other and the future of the daughter they love.

Genres: Second Chance, Westerns, Second Chance Romance, Romance, Contemporary

232 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2000

About the author

Eve Gaddy is the award winning, national bestselling author of forty novels and novellas.

Eve 's books have won and been nominated for awards from Romantic Times, Golden Quill, Bookseller’s Best, Holt Medallion, Texas Gold, Daphne Du Maurier and more. She was nominated for a Romantic Times Career Achievement Award for Innovative Series romance as well as winning the 2008 Romantic Times Career Achievement award for Series Storyteller of the year. Eve’s books have sold over a million copies worldwide and been published in several languages and many foreign countries.

Eve’s writing career began when she was in search of the perfect job and a friend challenged her to write a novel. Naturally, she thought of romance, since that is one of her favorite things to read.

Eve loves her family, spring and fall in east Texas, the Colorado mountains, dogs, chocolate, books, and electronics. She enjoys cooking except when she is creating, and has been known to tell her husband that is what takeout was created for.

Eve also loves a happy ending. That's why she writes romance.

Reviews

[Debbie "Buried in Her TBR Pile" · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked that Anna did not fall back into Jake's arms immediately. I don't think she owed Jake anything. He was engaged to her and married another woman. I almost hated Jake for the entire book. It was always about him - what he wanted at the time he wanted it. So, Anna resisting him when he came back to town was awesome. I loved the opening scene. His motives were not about Anna. While I am always happy for an HEA, Jake did not truly endear himself to me. 3.5 stars.

[Melinda · Rating 1 out of 5]

Don't care how hot the dude is he was a cheating jerk. Hated him from the beginning and nothing he did , no excuses he made changed that. He was engaged to be married and got drunk and got married and woke up with "Cookie" in the bed with him. He calls his fiance and brutally breaks the news to her and she doesn't get the chance to tell him she is expecting his child. She is devastated and breaks down and cries. Her friend Carl finds her and she tells him what the jerk has done and that she is pregnant. Carl show her true love and marries her to give her child a father. She eventually learns to love her husband. He was a good man and a loving father. To me he was the true hero and I wish the author hadn't killed him off.

[Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

First read for me by this author. I’m not really into cowboy romances but I was interested by the synopsis and some reviews implying this was angst filled.

I have to say what happened between the two main characters when they were very young was sad. Jake was initially to blame and then Anna compounded it by keeping the big secret for so many years, aided and abetted by Jakes best friend who wanted Anna for himself.

But now 16 years has elapsed since Jake was last home and Anna who is now a widow with a 16 year old daughter is stressed out because she realises that Jake is soon going to discover the truth.


Unlike some other reviewers I didn’t hate Jake. Yes he started the ball rolling when he cheated and married a groupie when he got drunk. Then when he phoned Anna to tell her what he’d done she didn’t reveal that she was pregnant, but is saved from being the subject of the town gossips by Carl Jake’s best friend who had always been in love with her. Carl died 5 years before leaving Anna to struggle on alone. But now Jake is back in town and his feelings for Anna are as strong as they ever were. She’s mad because she’s attracted to him as well. But what I found was very emotional was when Anna’s daughter Leigh finds out that the man whom she thought was her father wasn’t and how devastated she was to realise she’d been lied to. This story had a hard road to an HEA.

[Book Binge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thirteen years ago this novel was released by Harlequin Books and now has been re-released by Bell Bridges Books. It is an entertaining yet quite emotional read in that two people who were waaaaay too young made choices that took their lives in different directions, all without knowing initially that they had made a child together. Anna was facing the censure of her small town as an unwed mother–yet, there really are communities where that condition is still considered a no-no–and she turned to her lover’s best friend, a young man who has secretly always loved her. They made a life together, Anna eventually came to love Carl deeply, and they raised Anna’s daughter without any mention of her biological dad to the degree that Anna’s teen daughter never knew that Carl wasn’t her real dad. Now, as is so often the case–more often than most people realize–Daddy Jake shows up and the emotional “spit hits the fan.” Not only does Jake find out he has a daughter, but he is insisting on letting her know the truth about their connection.

This is a full-length novel that delves deeply into this complicated relational snarl, allowing readers to be fully immersed in the emotional quagmire that is Anna’s life as a widow with financial pressures, the pressure of knowing that she is going to have to tell her daughter about Jake, and beginning again with a love affair that never really went cold. It is wonderful to experience Jake and Anna finding their connection after so many years; it is difficult knowing that they are both rightfully worried that their daughter will allow her anger toward them to create a chasm between them that may never be bridged. Hint: don’t count out the grandpa. He has some tricks up his perverbial sleeve.
This was a book that I thoroughly enjoyed, even though there were fleeting moments when I got a bit weary with Anna’s anxiety. But not ever having been in her situation I tried to put myself in her shoes and had to admit that I’m not sure I would have handled it any differently. It was truly a messy slice of life for all the main characters and a graphic reminder to all of us that life often gets really messy before its all over. I think it is a very well-written novel, one that will keep the reader’s interest, that keeps the movement of the story going forward, and is one that deserves exposure to a new audience.

I give it a rating of 4 out of 5.

This review was originally posted on Book Binge by Judith.

[Judith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A complicated love story that features two individuals whose past choices took them away from each other, whose immaturity allowed them to be overwhelmed by living, and whose lives have once again converged. The "fly in the ointment?" A daughter, born after her bronc riding dad left town and married some buckle bunny while in a drunken stupor, and who has no idea that the man her mom married and who raised her for the first years of her life was not her biological dad. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to realize that this is a perfect set-up for a perfectly awful emotional upset for this teenage girl as well as for a couple of adults whose love for one another has never really died. Released with a new cover it is a story that certainly embraces a situation that is far more common than most realize. It makes for emotional reading. I did get a bit weary of the mom's issues, but when taking into consideration her financial pressures since the death of her husband, the increased emotional pressure at the initially unwelcome presence of her daughter's father, and the worry that even when she and our hero renew their love affair that she will lose the love and respect of her daughter, it was far more understandable and fit into the overall story very well. Since I am a reader who re-visits old "friends" by going back and re-reading my old favorites rather often, I am always delighted when publishers re-release novels and give a new audience an opportunity to appreciate them.

[Mrs. Garen L. Herd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good read

Our hero is a retired rodeo champion and our heroine is a widow struggling to keep her riding school going and raise a teenage daughter. And he and she have a history going back to high school and she has a major secret. When he returns home the sparks fly. Highly recommend.

[Jane Bonner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good reading

I enjoyed this book from start to finish and all the places in between. Jake and Anna had a love that was lost for 15 years. Over coming all of the obstacles to get the love back on track.

[Nikki · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was so so. Anyone else like Carl? Out of everyone in this book? Cause wow, that dude, is awesome. Everyone else...still alive kinda sucks. Hero wasn't great, didn't really think he deserved to get the girl or his daughter.

[Francesca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heart wrenching second chance love story.

[Tiffany · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just an okay quick read.

[Eliana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Old reads

[Jennifer Collins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh

[Arielle]

2.5 honestly just stopped reading at 90%

[Linda (un)Conventional Bookworms · Rating 4 out of 5]

*I received a free ARC of Cowboy Come Home from BelleBooks via Netgalley in exchange of an honest review*

Cowboy Come Home has everything a contemporary romance novels needs in order to make me completely swoon!

Full review to come soon.

This and other reviews are originally posted on my blog (un)Conventional Bookviews .

Cowboy Come Home is a sweet contemporary romance filled with complications for the two protagonists, Jake Rollins and Anna Connor. They were childhood sweethearts, and had been all set to get married when Jake left town to become a professional in the rodeo circuit. Anna knows very well that things can become complicated very fast, and while she is hoping Jake is a lot less charming now than he was when he was twenty, she goes about her life trying to ignore him. Anna has been widowed for a few years when Jake comes back, but she has no intentions whatsoever to pick up where they had left things off in their youth. She has Leigh to consider now, and she doesn’t want Jake to make her life any more difficult than it already is – between her riding school and working hard to make ends meet, she has more than enough on her plate.

Jake has other plans, he has already met Leigh during a competition, and the young girl makes him think that maybe there is something more to Anna and Carl’s story than he ever thought. Cowboy Come Home narrates all the rational reasons Anna gives herself for having never let Jake know he has a daughter. At the same time, she has to admit to herself that she is still very much attracted to Jake, who has matured like an excellent wine. He is more adult, even better looking than before, and he seems to be a lot more reliable than he was when he was twenty. However, Anna needs to keep her secret, because Leigh has grown up thinking Carl is her father, and Anna does not want her daughter to doubt hers or Carl’s love. Especially because Carl is no longer around to help Anna with difficult explanations.

As the attraction between Jake and Anna grows, they both start to question both their own and the other’s motives. When Leigh gives Anna the go-ahead, things become more difficult, because Jake really wants Leigh to know he is her biological father. In the end, Leigh learns this from someone else entirely, and her whole world is turned upside down… The interactions between the characters is very realistic, and friends and neighbors are a big part of the story as well.

The writing is evenly paced, and Cowboy Come Home is easy to read, the story flows nicely as the narrative progresses through the labyrinth that has been created by the two main characters. Both Jake and Anna as well as the secondary characters are well done, and the secondary plots are integrated to the story with flair. All in all, I really enjoyed Cowboy Come Home, and can definitely recommend it as a light and complicated romance that is a perfect summer read. If you don’t know what books to bring with you on vacation, this should definitely make it onto your list.

And oh, Lord, what a man. Same dark-blond hair, same sky-blue eyes, same lady-killer dimple winking in one lean cheek. Six feet plus of pure, hard male.

He leaned over, his arm reaching around behind her. For a minute she didn’t know what he intended and felt a brief flare of fear. No, not fear, she realized, but… excitement. What the heck was wrong with her? She was long over this man.

Jake raised his head, and they stared at each other for an endless moment. He looked as bemused a she felt. Jake Rollins, ladies’ man, befuddled by a simple kiss? Not possible.

No matter how hard Anna tried, Jake occupied a disturbingly large portion of her waking moments. Worse, he played a starring role in most of her dreams.

“You may cry pretty, Anna, which by the way, I find incredibly annoying, but I can still tell when you’ve been crying”.

[Dani C. (Polly's Place) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was just a nice story about a rodeo star coming home after being gone for 16 years. Jake had left Happy, Texas and didn’t think he would ever return until the day he was a presenter at a rodeo. One look at one of the winners and he knew who this girl parents were; the woman who he broke up with by marrying another woman and himself.

A quick read, this was a nice way to enjoy the afternoon while my boys watched football. I was able to escape to the small town and to the yummy romance between Jake and Anna. Now apparently this book was first release 13 years ago but while I read it I had no clue. If you like small town, cowboy romance and looking for something quick to read I would totally recommend this book!

[JJH--Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this story from the beginning. It was pretty "middle of the road" for me, but I thought the last third of the book was fantastic. I felt the characters were well defined, the writing style was pleasant and had a good flow--timeline moved quickly, but not confusingly. The story had a whole "down to earth feel" to it. I felt the emotions and actions were pretty realistic, and not done in an overly dramatic "over the top" way. I did not agree with some of the characters actions, but the author made it so I could understand them, and it made me not lose interest in the book for not liking the characters themselves.

[Christa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sixteen years ago, Jake Rollins left his Texas hometown and Anna Connor behind, not knowing she was pregnant. Heartbroken, Anna raised their daughter with the help of a good man. A chance encounter with a teenager has Jake suspicious and returning to his hometown, where a now widowed Anna lives with her daughter, Leigh. Feelings still abound between Jake and Anna, and he is determined to know his daughter.

This was an enjoyable secret baby story. I enjoyed the storyline and liked the characters.

[Nicole Naranjo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jake Rollins is freaking HOT!!!! This was such a sweet story. I really enjoyed it, it had me at the first chapter. I would love to read more about this story. Maybe a few years in the future about Leigh falling in love with Luis maybe? And some babies for Jake and Anna.