Nate Brightman's Reviews > Cowboy Up

Cowboy Up is I believe the first in author Stacy Finz’s new Dry Creek Ranch series. I say I believe because there’s nothing at the end of the story nor on the author’s website to tout the next book in the series. But the book does show under the header Dry Creek Ranch, this book ends not necessarily with a cliff hanger but definitely with some questions about the future and with two of the three Dalton cousins Cash, Jace and Sawyer unattached. So I have to believe there’ll be two more books for Jace and Sawyer. There is a fourth female cousin Angie, Sawyer’s sister who is mentioned as living a risky lifestyle and not been able to be located. I don’t think she’ll get her own book but finding and perhaps saving her could be part of Sawyers story? Just conjecture on my part.
The author is not new to me but it has been quite some time since I’d read anything by her. She tells a good story. This one contains drama, romance, sex and some suspense. Cash Dalton has recently been fired as a special agent for the F.B.I. for disagreeing with his superiors as to how they handled an investigation which he feels resulted in the unnecessary rape and murder of a young woman. He feels personally responsible for not doing more to prevent her death. Aimless he returns to Dry Creek Ranch which was left to him and his three cousins by his late grandfather. Due to the drought that has plagued California for several years the once prosperous ranch has fallen upon hard times. His cousin Jace who is local sheriff lives in the big main house with his two young sons. Jace’s ex-wife left him and his sons a couple of years ago. Jace was raised by his grandfather after his parents and younger brother were killed in a car accident when he was a little boy so Dry Creek Ranch is the only home he’s ever known. Also living on the ranch is their younger cousin Sawyer a professional writer. Sawyer who is wealthy has remodeled one of the barns on the property into a loft for himself. Cash is living in a dumpy two bedroom cabin next to Dry Creek. He spends his days drinking and taking target practice. Cash has just learned he has a twelve year old daughter Ellie when her mother who is dying of cancer contacts him with the news literally days before she dies. Cash had a one night affair with the woman (a Boston police detective) when they both attended a law enforcement seminar years ago and had never heard from her since. Now Cash who has always been a loner must fly to Boston to attend the woman’s funeral and bring back his daughter to raise. Cash is a fish out of water trying to father a twelve year old girl who is a complete stranger to him. Your heart bleeds for poor Ellie who has lost her mother, the only parent she’s ever known is now relocated from urban Boston to a rundown cabin on a ranch in California to live with a father she doesn’t know. Ellie first doesn’t know and then when told doesn’t believe that her mother kept her a secret from her father and blames him for never being a part of her life. She believes Cash has only taken her in out of a sense of responsibility and doesn’t love her. She desperately wants to return to Boston and the life she knew.
Our female lead is Aubrey. Aubrey has just broken up with her fiancée Mitch, whom she’s lived with for ten years and was supposed to be marrying in two weeks when she catches him banging Jill, the wife of Brett, one of their best friends on his desk at work. Aubrey is not real broken up about the broken engagement as she realizes she never really loved Mitch. Why it took her catching him cheating on her after being with the guy for ten years is a mystery I don’t understand. Problem is Aubrey also worked for Mitch handling the interior decorating area of his planned community construction company. Now she’s not only out of work but Mitch has black listed her and bad mouthed her all over town telling people she left him because she was having an affair with Jace who was also one of Mitch’s best friends. Not only can’t Aubrey find work in her chosen profession but she can’t even get served at the local businesses and her car has been vandalized as it seems the entire town of Dry Creek has turned against her because of Mitch’s lies. Because she does not want to destroy Brett she can’t defend herself and tell her side of the story. Although their relationship has been completely platonic since they were children when Jace allows the jobless Aubrey to move into the cabin across the creek from Cash it only adds to the local gossip that she and Jace are involved.
After a rough early start Aubrey and Cash become friends as Cash, despite his reservations can’t resist her charms. Aubrey does her best to help Cash build a relationship with Ellie and gives Ellie a woman to confide in. They begin a friends with benefits relationship agreeing that because neither has a job which means either could be moving at any time and because Cash needs to focus his attention on Ellie and Aubrey is just getting out of a long term relationship it will never be more than a friends with benefits relationship for as long as it lasts. Of course they both fall madly in love with one another despite trying not to. Cash being a guy has to nearly lose Aubrey before he can Cowboy Up and acknowledge he loves and needs her so they can live their happily ever after. By the end of the story Cash, Aubrey and Ellie are a happy family with both adults finding satisfying careers that allow them to continue to live on the ranch. It’s clear that while they aren’t married it’s definitely in their future. No big spoiler here unless you’ve never read a contemporary romance before. What’s left in limbo besides the love lives of single father Jace and Sawyer is how they turn the ranch into a profitable operation and pay the hefty taxes on it, and where is the missing Angie. To be continued!