4.5 stars

When the hero decides to fulfil a dying man's mission, to help a town defend against a family that won't stop at anything until they get what they want, he doesn't suspect how much his life is going to change in the process. Upon meeting the 'Widder Berry', the woman who hired Nat Church to protect the town from the Burdicks, he's impressed by her looks, her strength and her mind. She on the other hand, is not impressed by the man who took over Church's job and asks him to leave.

I loved everything about this book: the plot which had me guessing and changing my mind about the villain more than once, the witty, humorous dialogues that had me laughing out loud more than once and the perfect accord between the hero and the heroine. Those two understood each other from the start which didn't mean that they were all cheesy words and love declarations: they disagreed, they bickered, they teased, but they never, ever turned mean or tried to hurt one another. Both were smart people and actually acted as such for the entire length of the story; no silly misunderstandings, fear or distrust, no going back on their words or trying to save the day -and the city- by sneaking out in the dark to fight all the bad guys alone. And still, it was not a sweet-cheesy-peachy story; there was anxiety, their was tension, there were issues to be solved and secrets to be told that kept the story moving at a fast pace. Add in the twists that half of them I never saw coming, the clever dialogues and excellent writing, the entirely likable but not perfect characters from the main heroes to the secondary one, and you have an excellent book on your hands.

Highly recommended!