Rebel
by Renee Rose and Vanessa Vale
My review:
“Rebel” is the second book in the ‘Alpha Mountain’ series by the dynamic writing team of Renee Rose and Vanessa Vale. The Alpha Mountain series is centered on a group of men who served in the Navy SEALs together. After one dies, another has his career stripped from him. He returns home to Montana and starts a Security Agency. As the rest of the team separate from the service, they find a new home in the wilds of Montana, working with their old teammate.
Rafael Reyes (call sign Hayes) and Deputy Sheriff Megan Hager have been checking each other out since book 1. Now they finally indulge in a hot hookup, but then she makes it very clear that it’s not going to happen again. Hayes is determined to figure out why, because he knows she had as good a time as he did. Megan doesn’t do relationships of any kind, because relationships lead to pain. Saying she has trust issues would be putting it mildly. She has seen how people get hurt, and she doesn’t want that to happen to her again. In many ways, Megan has trust issues—it is from the people she loved, and they left her. Raf finally persuades her to give the connection between them a chance, and then her father shows up … an ugly reminder of terrible things in her past. Her estranged father is in a bad situation and begs for her help. It’s bad, but then things go from bad to worse.
I’ve tried to not give away too much of the plot, because it’s really a good one. Raf and Megan are both complex, multidimensional characters. There is a solid cast of secondary characters who add even more depth and humor to the story. Some moments will pull at your heartstrings and others will make you smile. It’s one of those books where you want the main characters to have their happy ending, but you also don’t want the story to end at all. This is an excellent series, and I’m looking forward to the next story!