"A quickie read, too rushed."

Lisa Jackson's strong voice makes this quickie read pleasurable, but the book is hurt by the fast-pace due to the Desire low word count. This makes it hard to develop any sort of real story or character development. It hardly took an hour to read this. You don't get a chance to really get to know the characters or why they act or react as they do. You're just told they do, accept it, and move on quickly! This downsizing of desire limits the writers.

Randi McCaffery's tale (fourth in the series following stories with her three older brothers) picks up with someone still trying to kill her. Presumably, someone wants her dead because she bore a child out of wedlock, even though she refuses to name the daddy. There have been two attempts on her life, nearly killing her and causing to give birth to her baby prematurely. Now, she is determined to leave the family ranch for fear of putting her brothers in danger. Frankly, this pigheaded determination to do it on her own is contrived. When a person has someone trying to kill her, she does not run away from the very people that can help you. But that is precisely what Randi does. She claims she is trying to lure the killer away from her brothers, but it's hard to accept as logical. She is also fleeing away from Kurt Striker. Their one night of passion sends Randi running heedless of the danger to her and her baby. Oh, she makes an attempt to hide the child, but not really.

Striker is hired by her brothers to go after Randi and be her bodyguard. She kicks and screams she knows best and is smart enough to take careful of herself - yet walks into apartments where the-would-be murder has been. Finally, she is driven to flee the city with Striker in hopes of hiding from the killer. Of course, their romance picks up once again. Poor Randi spends the whole book running!

The killer is transparent. Sorry, with these tiny books there is just no time to develop secondary characters or make their motivations believable. Jackson is a strong, talented writer, and has done some marvelous work in series romance. Just Silhouette Desire's short 185-page length just cramps her completely. Also, I am seeing a shocking "overlay" of editor's voice in the Desire Line. I am very familiar with Jackson's voice and the voice of the talented Leanne Banks, yet both their releases for this series, it's showing too much "editor's voice". These are talented ladies, stand back and let them do what they do best.

Reviewed by DeborahAnne MacGillivray
Posted August 16, 2004

Summary

Was hiding the identity of her child's father worth risking her life? Only Randi McCafferty seemed to believe so, and investigator Kurt Striker was hell-bent on changing her mind. Hired by her well-meaning but overbearing brothers to keep Randi and her son safe, Kurt knew the only way to eradicate the danger was to reveal Randi's darkest secret... any way he could.

But in uncovering her guarded past, Kurt was forced to confront his own well-hidden desires: He wanted the very woman he'd been entrusted to protect. There was no denying they shared a fierce attraction, yet Kurt feared having Randi in his bed would leave them both vulnerable to a force neither had ever imagined....