📚THE STORY📚
Gabby doesn’t trust cowboys. Her father and her ex were both cowboys, and they were unreliable, dishonest, and took far more than they gave.
Dylan isn’t a cowboy. He’s a trust fund baby, the son of a Texas oil magnate. So that’s a good thing - right?
Except Gabby thinks he’s a cowboy. He’s keeping his true identity and wealth secret, letting her believe he’s just another drifting ranch hand.
Why? Because Gabby is raising his infant niece after both her parents - Gabby’s sister and Dylan’s brother - passed away. And Dylan wants to make sure everything with Gabby’s parenting is above board before he reveals his plan to look after her financially, lest she see dollar signs and start plying him for more money.
But Gabby isn’t the type to try and take advantage of a wealthy man. As Dylan starts to spend more time with her, he discovers that she’s a hardworking, loving, salt of the earth soul. And he starts to fall for her.
Will his secret come out? Can Gabby love a cowboy - or a man pretending to be one?
💕THE ROMANCE💕
Gabby is attracted to Dylan from the start, but she holds herself back for all sorts of reasons. She’s careful about letting men into her life after being burned one too many times by her father and an ex she thought she loved. Plus, she has a baby to think about, and she doesn’t want to risk a man getting close to little Phoebe and then letting her down.
Dylan is initially drawn to Gabby’s down to earth sensibility and the way she tenderly cares for his niece. They connect over having both lost a sibling and their shared love for Phoebe. He shows up for her, doing what he says he’ll do, when he says he’ll do it. He longs to use his fortune to look after her more, but is stuck keeping his secret. When it finally comes out, he’s able to make a grand gesture befitting a wealthy romance hero.
Jealousy plays a large role in developing the romance. Both characters see other locals trying to catch the other person’s attention, and their strong feelings in response to witnessing this help push them toward acknowledging how they feel about one another.
✝️FAITH ELEMENTS✝️
They attend church together. Though we don’t hear the actual content of the sermon, the text notes that it’s on the topic of resisting temptation, which gets Dylan thinking seriously about his attraction to Gabby.
Both characters pray, and both have a journey to go on in their own personal faith. Gabby needs to learn how to embrace Christ’s message of forgiveness and grace, while Dylan learns to accept his worth as a child of the Lord rather than getting caught up in his father’s expectations.
📝MY THOUGHTS📝
This was a fun blending of the secret identity, wealthy hero, and cowboy tropes! The dramatic irony of Gabby rejecting Dylan because she doesn’t trust cowboys, while Dylan is trying to pretend to be a cowboy, is very fun. I enjoyed the arc of the romance, with everything from kisses to a great apology and reconciliation scene.