Book: Kicking Up Dust: A Spicy, Accidental Pregnancy, Small Town Cowboy Romance by Cassie Truett
Reviewed by Anonymous
Rating: 4.5/5
Colton Whittaker is a bull riding bad boy who knows how to stir up trouble both with his family and in his personal life. When he meets a shy girl in LA that's willing to spend the night with him knocking boots, they both know what they signed up for. The night he and Blair share together was one for the books as far as level of fun goes, and when he buts his head on the pillow he has plans for their morning before she goes back to meet up with her friends. But when the sun rises and Blair's gone, his little glimmer of happiness is snuffed out.
As the weeks pass and the rodeo continues to not have the same shine as it used to, he still thinks about Blair and wonders if things might've been different if they'd exchanged numbers and kept in touch. And while we know he's a bit of a shit stirrer, especially with the glimpses of him we got in Playing With Fire, there's a lot going on in Colt's head that he keeps bottled up and heads him to asking the question of whether or not his life would be better just... being done.
Meanwhile, in LA, Blair's back in her final semester of college just trying to get through to graduation. Where Colt has a very loving family and a bunch of siblings, Blair grew up in the foster system after the death of her parents so her future is truly in her hands to mold into whatever she can to support herself after going to college on a scholarship. What she doesn't expect and took multiple precautions against was the two little lines that show up a few months after her one night stand with the rodeo star.
In denial, she decides to keep it from Colt until it's teetering on the lines of being almost too late to tell him and have plausible deniability. And that night? It changes the path of Colt's life in more ways than one.
Colt and Blair are truly a case of opposites attract in the best way. On the outside, he's this outgoing family man with a larger than life personality very much the opposite of Blair's reserved shy nature. But when they move to the Whittaker Ranch and live in the Big House until they have a place of their own, their forced proximity and the pregnancy have them spending more and more time together and quickly bonding over their shared traumatic backgrounds. And while they both struggle in their pasts, they have such an opportunity come together and build a beautiful life together.
After reading Playing With Fire, I was fully prepared to not like Colt at the beginning, but the way the story starts and the background we get as readers immediately had me doing a 180. Similar to the first book in this series, there are some dark themes and experiences that happen (check your triggers), but it was such a beautiful story. There's a lot of things that they both have to get over, and bonding together to help each other and build that relationship was so moving.
I seriously love this series so much and that's two for two on getting me to cry reading, but it was so worth it. It's just emotional and moving in the best ways. I know Bailey's book will also probably wreck me, but I'm really looking forward to getting to know her and her backstory in book three.