Her Baby And Her Beau

Poor Kyla, as if she didn’t already have enough to be dealing with after the fire, her sprained wrist and the sudden guardianship of an infant, now she has a big slice of her past rearing its painful head. Luckily Beau isn’t there purely to apologise, and if you have to have anyone on your side at a crisis moment surely an ex-marine with a big family and access to a chain of department stores ticks most of the useful boxes. Sure, she’s not sure she can trust him and she’s still full of hurt after so many years, but I liked that she wasn’t stubborn to the point of stupidity. She knew she couldn’t cope on her own, so she took what was on offer.

Then there was Beau. What a sweetheart. I liked that although he wasn’t suffering from PTSD (as so many ex-forces romantic heroes are these days), he was having trouble adjusting to civilian life. After so long living a certain way, I really appreciated that nothing was as simple and straightforward as it appeared. I also loved how he tried to help Kyla whatever ways he could, but never tried to dominate or control her. He listened, he waited and he did what she allowed him to.

Although if there was one thing I missed in this book it was Immy. Considering how much time both of them had to spend learning to look after her, caring for her and tending to her, she didn’t really feature much as a character herself. She’s more of an obstacle or task to be dealt with, or a timetable to be stuck to. There are a couple of scenes where Beau is holding her, but mostly they seem to leave her to sleep somewhere else. Which was a bit of a shame, since I love a bonding with the cute kid scene. True, she’s a little young for most interesting things, but still it would have been nice to have seen more scenes between her and Kyla.

In all this is just the kind of story I expect from M&B Cherish. It’s sweet, has an emotional core with a lovely romance, and even a bit of heat towards the end. A lovely feel-good real.