After being wrongfully convicted and spending twenty months in jail, Kieran only has one goal: find the man who was behind setting him up, which is how he reaches Redemption Ridge. Although he plans to focus solely on finding evidence of foul play and keeping himself away from everyone on the ranch, when he is assigned to assist Finley, an equine specialist, he can't help himself from feeling like he's caught in a spell. He finds himself wanting to know more about Finley, wanting all his sunny smiles aimed at Kieran.

Finley has a record of falling for the wrong men. He can't help but feel drawn to those with haunting eyes and dark pasts. But after being hurt and left the way he had six months ago by his last boyfriend, Finley decides that he is going to take a break from dating, until he comes across Kieran, whose pain is clear as day, as is the fact that he is the last person who would want anything resembling a relationship. But Kieran intrigues him like no one ever has, and he knows there's a lot more to him than he's letting on, and FInley wants to be the one to learn everything about him.

Finley does try to not get too involved with Kieran because he doesn't want to get his heart broken again. Kieran doesn't want to put down roots and start anything with Finley because he doesn't plan to stay once he's found what he's looking for.

I liked that even though they were both attracted to each other and even kissed, they stayed friends, especially when Finley offered to help Kieran find out who was behind setting him up. As they spend time coming up with ways to find this person, they form a genuine bond, and their friendship grows. For someone like Kieran, who had no one, has been closed off all his life, and has been betrayed in the worst way by someone he loved, watching Finley selflessly go above and beyond for him takes him by surprise. He tries to fight his growing feelings for Finley, chalking it up to just physical attraction, but the more he watches how Finley saw him, he never judged him for anything and chose to trust him even when he barely knew Kieran; that was a pivotal point for Kieran to start seeing things differently. The moment he starts wondering if maybe he could have something more and something real with Finley and that maybe Finley would choose him too.

My heart did break for Kieran and everything he had endured—the way he grew up, the experiences he had to live through, the betrayals, the way people saw him and how their words cut deeper than he had let anyone see, and how all of this culminated in him feeling unworthy of love and happiness. Kieran opening up to Finley about his past was so heartwarming when you realize what his past was like and what it meant for him to give away those pieces of himself to Finley along with his trust. Finley played a major role in Kieran seeing things differently for the first time, like he wasn't a lost cause, like he could hope and reach for things that he wanted to, which he did.

I get where Finley is coming from because I do love a good broken-hero romance. All those emotions and angst really work for me, and it did so with this book. All that angst, flirting, banter, and sexual tension between Kieran and Finley was really good, which resulted in the spice being hot.

I also loved how Kieran slowly starts forming a bond with the guys at the ranch. Being someone who stayed to himself and being in a situation where he was basically all by himself, not knowing who to trust and who not to, this was huge, and it happened gradually. These guys have had similar experiences, and they kept showing up for him and made him see that he didn't have to deal with life alone and his past didn't have to ruin his future.

I enjoyed the mix of romance and the mild suspense building in the background and how it all came to an end.

I loved Hope. Her appearances in the book were hilarious.

Looking forward to Ivan's book next.