Cowboy SEAL Homecoming (Navy SEAL Cowboys #1) by Nicole Helm

 Cowboy SEAL Homecoming by Nicole Helm

Blurb:

Three former Navy SEALs

Injured in the line of duty
Desperate for a new beginning...
Searching for a place to call their own.

Alex Maguire never thought he'd go home again. The perfect soldier, the perfect leader, he's spent his whole life running away from Blue Valley, Montana—but when a tragic accident bounces him and two of his men out of the SEALs, there's nowhere left to turn but the ranch he used to call his own...and the confusing, innocently beguiling woman who now lives there.

Becca Denton's like nothing he could have imagined. She's far too tempting for her own good, but when she offers to help turn the ranch into a haven for injured veterans, he can't exactly say no. He'll just need to keep his distance. But something in her big green eyes makes Alex want to set aside the mantle of the perfect soldier and discover the man he could have been...safe and whole within the shelter of her arms.

The Prodigal SEAL has come home.

About rain-soaked speeches, love and loss....

This is a book about losing oneself and finding your way while doing it. It is also a book about friendship and love and the knowledge that sometimes love hurts because things (and people) don't have to be perfect. And it is a book about the need to protect others, to be in control and about people who have always been (overly) protected - and about the necessity for all of them to learn how to live without it.

When Alex and his friends, all three of them former SEALS, arrive in Montana to work on the ranch together with his, somehow or not really, stepsister, they are still troubled by the after-effects of the attack that ended their military career - and the life of their friend who sacrificed himself for them. While they are all working together to set up a foundation to give veterans like them a place to heal, they all have to learn how to live again and to learn to accept that indeed, nobody is perfect - and that they don't have to be.

While Alex is mostly hurting himself with his need to protect everybody and to control and fix everything, Becca is someone who has been deeply hurt by her mother who always meant well and who protected her against everything and everybody - while ath the same time making her feel lonely and insecure.

This book concentrates on Alex and Becca, those two being two sides of the coin - the one who wants to protect at all costs and the one who suffered due to such an extensive protection but everything I learned about Jack and Gabe, makes me want to learn about them as well.

All of them struggle in their own way but you can feel how close they are and how they never give up on the others, no matter how much the other one fights against them. Once they start to accept that they need help, the healing can begin.

If all of that sounds too heavy and too much like a tragedy, rest assured, a tragedy it is not. Not at all. It is funny and witty and I loved Becca and her way of reaching out, overcoming her shyness and her fear, her sassy remarks and how hings just got a little bit brighter when she was around. Yes, all of the main characters have a lot to deal with and they struggle and sometimes they even fail but nevertheless this book has a lot of sunshine in it.

I really loved reading this book and it definitely wasn't the last time that I've read it!

★★★★★