COWBOY PLAYER (Cowboy Cocktail #3)

COWBOY PLAYER                       MIA HOPKINS

This cowboy and cowgirl sell the steak and the sizzle.

Cowboy Cocktail, Book 3

For eight years, Melody Santos played the game of love and lost—big time. Now she’s back in her tiny hometown looking after her younger sister, making ends meet with an assortment of odd jobs. When her childhood best friend hires her to help him sell his family’s grass-fed beef, the last thing she anticipates is falling in lust with the legendary, brown-eyed player.

To put his family’s cattle ranch back in the black, Clark MacKinnon has his sights set on big contracts—gourmet chefs and restaurateurs. If that means long hours traveling from farmer’s market to farmer’s market, Clark doesn’t mind. Particularly since his new assistant is his childhood crush, all grown up and sexy as hell.

One night in bed leaves them breathless and hungry for more. But when his love-’em-and-leave-’em reputation collides with her trust issues, Clark and Melody must face the truth about what they’ve become: not friends, not lovers, but players in a game that’s impossible to win.

Warning: Contains filthy banter, raunchy sex, excessive Johnny Cash references, and hundreds of pounds of raw beef.

MY REVIEW:

     The MacKinnon family farm has always seemed like home to Melody and Harmony Santos.  You see their father was the foreman there.  But when he passed away the family was taken under the wing of the MacKinnon’s.  They were there for every holiday or event.  Melody and Clark were the closest in age of the three MacKinnon boys.  So the two of them did everything together.  Melody could give as good as she got.  Even in her Sunday best.

     Clark always had a soft spot for her though he never told anyone.  So whenever one of their pranks backfired he made sure to take the heat for their actions.  Both Clark and Melody were smart as whips and would challenge each other to be better.  He always knew his heart was hers.  Yet, his brothers were both heartbreakers and he had a rep to uphold like them being he was told he was handsome just like them.  So around his junior high years he came into his own so their friendship wasn’t as close as it once had been.

     Melody had her own way of getting back him back on even ground and letting him know his head was getting to big for his own good.  She would do things like sign him up for the academic decathlon and things like that to keep him grounded.  He decided that for college he would stick to a local one.  Where for Melody she decided she would be going to San Diego to get herself a teaching degree.  The thing that bummed him out was that he still hadn’t told her how he felt about her.  With her going away he just figured he would wait that he would just tell her when she came back.

     The thing is Melody didn’t come back.  She ended up staying in San Diego for eight years once she met a guy and moved in with him.  Until her mother passed away from pneumonia.  That is when her douche bag ex says he’s breaking up with her and oh yeah by the way I’m in love with someone else and we are getting married.  This is the same guy who had told her for eight years that he didn’t believe in marriage.

     So she ends up back home working three jobs, to help pay off her mom’s medical bills, her sister’s loans, and a place for her sister to live until she is on her feet as a nurse.  You see her sister just graduated from the nursing program and got a new job.  But until she is up and running and gets her first check Melody feels she needs to help out like her mom would have done.  One of the jobs she is working is on helping Clark selling meat at farmer’s market.  The thing that is a little unsettling is that there is some mild flirting going on with Clark which is a whole lot of weird. 

     I totally enjoyed this book.  The chemistry between these two characters is hot and off the charts.  The way they banter and the sexual frustration, growl!  But the love scenes were tasteful and just that love scenes.  I give this 5 stars.  Provided by netgalley.com.  Follow us at: www.1rad-readerreviews.com.