Maggie Stanley runs out of her home with her infant son to escape a terrible man. She gets on a train hoping to get to safety and encounters Rafe Kendrick, a man riding the rails to hide from his past. Rafe can't help but rush to Maggie's rescue. Maggie keeps trying to leave Rafe even though she feels grateful until Maggie's health takes a turn and Rafe is the only one to keep her safe. Upon the arrival of her evil stepfather, Rafe decides he must take his rightful place among his family so he can protect Maggie and her son. He whisks her home and marries her to protect her and tries to convince her he wants this to be a real marriage all while trying to keep her stepfather away from her.

I'm not a huge fan of damsel stories. I tend to sit back and wish for the heroines to save themselves. Maybe they need some help but I want them to figure things out. Sure Maggie gets her chance in the last fifty pages but she spends the first 200+ being the damsel. She whines about being the damsel and keeps trying to leave but at the same time she never actually does anything about it. She lets Rafe rescue her again and again. I understand her initial logic because she had nothing to fight back with but once she married Rafe she could have taken on a little more agency. Instead she sort of laid there and felt sorry for herself.

In a weird way this story wasn't the heroine's which is odd in a romance. This was really Rafe's story. This was his story of coming to terms with his wife and kids dying. It was him returning home and taking his rightful place on the ranch. It was him falling in love and building a life. I was on board with it but it struck me as odd. I expected the book to follow Maggie and it really didn't. It was a nice touch.

I really enjoyed this book and I plan to continue with book two. I'm waiting for it at the library but it could be awhile. In the meantime I'm checking out more romances again.