Sarah Benton is still recovering from being captured and tortured during the Gulf War. Suffering from PTSD and getting used to a new prosthetic foot, as well as breaking up with her fiancee, she is joining a new scheme to help soldiers recover and return to active service. Joining as a liaison for the Air Force is Captain Brand Reardon, who rescued Sarah in Iraq and who has unrequited feelings for her, as she was engaged at the time. But his real reason for being there is to protect her, as she is under threat from a potential terrorist threat. His role becomes even more important to him as he finds out she is single again and he resolves to always be there for her. As for Sarah, she has to come to terms with the feelings she had for Brand that she had always put aside, along with the new knowledge that she may know something important from her time in capture that has her marked her as a target.

This is book six in a series of Romance novels around the same theme of wounded soldiers finding love. The plot begins in Iraq, showing what happened, before cutting forward a few years when Sarah is heading to the new recovery center. From there, most of the story is around Sarah, her recovery and the blossoming romance. Actually there seems to be little of the actual recovery part, but a lot more of the homemaking and getting to know each other instead. But this fits the characters who both seem far more interested in trying to get back to a semblance of normality while also trying to find their way into each others hearts. Both Sarah and Brand make for an engaging couple, while you can still understand why it took so long for them to get together. The author seems far more at home with setting up our two leads than the mysteries in the background, but that’s way I was reading it anyway.

My biggest disappointment is the ending of the story. While the romance plays out as you might expect, the background mystery that started everything is left unresolved and something else takes its place. I don’t really want to give spoilers away, but it is a shame that the setup for the story is left hanging for future stories.

While the stories are interconnected, each one can be read as a standalone novel, with the others providing more background than anything else. I didn’t feel lost reading through when it came to the main story, although I still have my gripes about the background.

Overall, I certainly enjoyed the story, and fans of the genre should dive in. With several other books by the same author and on the same subject, there is plenty of reading material if you like them.