Macon Brady almost lost his life, and carries both the scars and the nightmares as a result. He knows how precious life is, but he also can’t help but think his hangups now make him a dangerous partner. 

Dakota Bristol has a very full schedule, between running her coffee shop and raising her son on her own, she works very hard for everything in her life. She has a tight knit group around her, her friends and employees, but doesn’t have family around her to help out. As part of the pact her friends made, she is to be set up on a blind date to give her a break from her hectic schedule. She is less than enthused though, so when Macon offers to be a practice date, she accepts hoping it will get her friends to move on. 

I loved watching these two together. This was a sweet story, with a little bit of suspense involved. Macon wants to make these fake dates into the real thing and knows he wants to build a family with Dakota and her son. Dakota is wary of relationships because she has been burned hard, and her decisions from the past seem to be coming back to haunt her in ways she never imagined. 

I always love diving back into the world of Carrie Ann Ryan’s familial series. It doesn’t matter if it’s the Montgomery’s, the Brady’s, or any branch of the family trees. While this series is ostensibly tied together by the women, the Brady siblings are at the core, with the second brother tied up in the Pact. The side characters not tied directly to the Brady’s were some of my favorite additions of this book though. Dakota’s employees (and friends) gave the best pushes to get her out of her shell and offer support especially in the times she wasn’t willing to reach out herself.