DNF.
The firefighter alternates between being a captain, a lieutenant, and a chief throughout the story. Like multiple times he's called by one of these titles, or has them printed on his shirt. I even did a word search for each title to make sure I wasn't remembering incorrectly (gaslighting myself, yo) and he's definitely called all three titles at different times as if they're interchangeable. This should have been my first clue about how little this author cared to create a cohesive story.
The FMC falls onto one MMC's back in one scene, then talks to a different MMC about the event as if it was him she fell on (he wasn't there at the time).
The ex and his pack are constantly talked of as a "pack" and as "her pack", but she was only ever with the one of them. Then the MMCs are called a pack a few times before they say they're "not a pack", but decide to form one. But they also say it's an "archaic" thing, and people are scandalized, even the ex pack's new woman is calling her greedy for wanting a pack, even as they're STILL calling the ex's pack a pack. Wtf??? Please choose ONE world building item around packs.
The book explains exactly nothing to us. By 15% in, when people have already started talking about her like they knew her and her history, I only knew she had moved back to her hometown (from her sister's basement, who lives 3 hours away from this hometown???) because the BLURB told me so. The story made it seem like she moved to a brand new town, and that's solidified by the first customer to her brand new bakery opening (who becomes her best friend immediately) introducing herself...and then everyone suddenly knows her history, is excited to have her baking for them again, and there's a whole history everyone talks about as if WE already know the whole story but we don't. Oh and I guess it's not a new bakery, she's owned it it for years and it's just sat there? I mean, I gather that from reading between the lines but the damn story never told us outright.
This FMC married some random guy who, SURPRISE! is also from this town. We find that out by the MMC talking about knowing her first before that guy got his claws into her and they married. But the FMC is still utterly shocked to see her ex in the town. Their relationship was so abusive that she had to be on the run from him for 2 years and was in therapy all that time. Why would she move back there, alone, in the first place?? We're also introduced to his new woman out of the blue before it's even told to us that him and his pack even live there still. The FMC says she wanted to get away from the rumors and people who knew so much about her story...so she moved back to the town where (I'm guessing because it's never confirmed) it all happened? The town that runs fan pages for her and the alphas they want to get together? What even is this story?
Oh, what else did the blurb tell me? That one MMC was supposed to have been gone from the town for 10 years and recently moved back...except in the actual story, they had a non-fling thing 3 years earlier where he broke her heart by not saying anything when he saw she was being abused.
And let's talk about THAT because why are we supposed to find this man attractive when he turns a blind eye to women (especially the one he has a crush on) being abused? We kind of just tiptoe around that issue altogether.
The first time we meet a different MMC, we're told he's surrounded by women and ends the night with three of their numbers. In a small town where he wouldn't have had that many new women to meet, but I'll suspend my disbelief. Okay whatever, he's supposed to be the manwh0re of the group. But the next day he's bringing her flowers and telling her he wants to court her........,,,,,....
Apparently they all know each other and the MMCs grew up together, but two of them hardly know her? One has to feel her out to see why the other two are so obsessed suddenly, and he also becomes obsessed overnight. How did none of them realize this earlier? Why are two of the MMCs shocked when they find out the third one had a thing with her years earlier and has been in love with her since then?
This author can't remember her own timelines or what she's written before about these people. And we're hardly ever told how much time passes in the story. Every time they talk it seems like it's just the next day, or even that same day, but suddenly a week has passed, or something like that. Literally no idea how many days or weeks this book spans.
I'm jumping back and forth, but it was also annoying to be reading and have the two MMCs from the ranch suddenly talk about her popularity at the ranch, and she says she knows, and has internal thoughts about it like we know anything about them, or that they even knew each other. Because again, nothing about these people was introduced to the reader. It was like reading a sequel without reading the first book, except this is a standalone.
Allllll this and I was only at 32% when I decided to DNF. I didn't even skim to the end like I usually do when I DNF because I literally could not give af about these inconsistent characters.