Renegade Father (Silhouette Intimate Moments, 1062) ebook

This story is about the choices people make when they are young and how it affects and motivates them throughout their future. It is a story of how a young woman grows to recognize her own worth and power and how a young man finally comes to recognize his own worth and his ability to be vulnerable to the people he loves.

I FELT BOTH CHARACTERS WERE UNSYMPATHETIC. THERE WAS NO MAGIC IN THIS ROMANCE. IT SOUNDS LIKE A DEPRESSING LIFE TO LIVE AND A DEPRESSING ROMANCE.

Story already covered so these are my comments on -----
Joe Redhawk - Native American - seems like a dreamboat but only gets a daughter? And she has problems. Still she is a good girl.
Charlie Redhawk - corrupt, abusive - he gets a son! Delightful boy and a credit to his mother.
Annie Redhawk -- puts up with a lot -- Don't remember her offering Joe the ranch. Can't have any more children? realistic but not very romantic. Leaves me very dissatisfied for the characters.
This is not a put down, just how the story left me feeling! Too much angst! Excellent supporting characters! Still worth reading -- Very, very good --M

Renegade Father is about a girl, Annie, whose father owned and ran the Double C, a farm ranch. She grew up with Colt and Joe who were her best friends even though they were four years older than her. Her father died when she was 18 years old, leaving her alone to run the land herself. On the day of her fathers funeral, Annie and Joe were intimate with each other for the one and only time of their young lives. After that day, Joe left town without so much as a goodbye to Annie. She was left heartbroken and confused. When he finally came back, three months later, Joe was sent to jail for the murder of his father on the day that he was planning on going to see Annie. He later learned that she had married his brother, Charlie, and was pregnant with a daughter, Leah. He refused to let Annie visit him while he was in jail and hated the fact that she had married Charlie. When he got out jail, he went to work on Colt's ranch which was next door to the Double D. He hardly talked to Annie. Charlie abused Annie but she still stayed with him. She had a son by Charlie, C.J. Finally, Annie had decided that enough was enough and left Charlie. Joe couldn’t stand by and watch the woman he loved being abused by his brother. He warned him that if he ever laid another hand on her he would kill him. Joe came to work for Annie and became the best foreman she had ever had and their friendship was re-established although Joe swore to himself that he would never love Annie again. He avoided touching her when it was at all possible.
Joe decides to take a job in Wyoming in two months because he wants to start a new life where people don’t look at him like he is a murderer and he thinks that Annie has finally become emotionally strong enough to deal with the ranch without him. The news devastates Annie, Leah, C.J., Colt, and the other ranch hands. Leah’s grades and attitude start to go downhill and C.J. refuse to talk to Joe. Annie accepts that he is leaving even though she loves him and wishes he would stay. Luke, a young worker on the ranch, who has a crush on Annie, applies for the foreman opening but Annie turns him down. Things start going wrong on the ranch after that. First, Annie finds a picture of herself taken while she was doing paperwork in her house. Later, Dolly, her favorite dog, is poisoned. Fences are falling down allowing cows to wander off of her property. A calf falls through the ice of a pond and Annie, trying to convince herself that she can do things without Joe, almost drowns to death trying to save it while Luke stands by not knowing what to do. Joe comes to her rescue and falls in with them. Luke saved them. They go to a shack close by to warm up until help can get there. They end up getting intimate together, much to Joe's dismay. He regrets it immediately. Charlie, who Annie had thought she was free of, appeared at her house, demanding more money from her than he had received in the divorce. She was terrified of him and was forced to agree to his demands because if she didn’t, he would let out a secret that would ruin her life along with making a few people she cared about deeply, hate her. Charlie said that he would be back in a week to claim the money. During a heavy storm, Leah took off on her horse after yelling at Joe and Annie that she knew their secret and had waited years for them to tell her but they never had and were never planning to. Annie was terrified that she knew and that know Joe had learned the truth. When Leah didn’t return to the house, as the storm grew worse, Annie and Joe went out in search of her. They got a call form Colt saying that she was safe at his house. The storm was too bad to return home so they had to go back to the old shack. She explained to him why she made the decisions that she did. He now understood what she had gone through in her life and he felt responsible for the years of abuse that she put up with from Charlie. They ended up making love and then they returned home. Joe again regretted giving in to his feelings for her. When they got back to the ranch Annie went in to take a shower. When she went to her room, Charlie was sitting on her bed. He demanded money. She refused and laughed at him, for the first time in her life she stood up to him. He hit her twice, once in the eye, the other in the mouth. Joe heard her screams and ran to help. When he got there, he found Annie attacking a stunned Charlie. He got Annie away form him and made Charlie leave. Joe took care of Annie’s injuries, which she was almost proud of. The next night, Annie discovered the horse barn was on fire. She called the fire department. All of the men were in town except Joe who was in the foreman’s building, packing to leave the next morning. Annie didn’t want to waste time going to tell him what had happened. When she got to the horse barn she found Luke passed out from smoke inhalation. She went in to save the horses, much to the dismay of Luke. Trying to save Leah’s horse, Annie got kicked and passed out in the barn amid the fire. (...)
This was a good book. It was very suspenseful and full of unexpected twists in the plot. It made you root for Joe and Annie to be together in the end (...). After reading this book, I want to read the others in this series.

I really enjoy this author---look forward to more books to read.

The story of Joe and Annie was excellently woven! I enjoyed the whole story from beginning to end, but the conclusion in the last several chapters was wonderful!