This story contains one of my biggest personal peeves: the hostile heroine. You know her. No matter how wonderful the hero is, she yells at him, fights with him, and belittles him practically the entire book. I like a little strife and conflict in my books, but constant arguing gets old quickly.

The heroine in question is Michaela Langtry. Her career as a meteorologist was destroyed by a network bigwig she’d accused of sexual harassment. When she moves home to Shiloh, Wyoming to regroup, she runs into a childhood acquaintance, Harrison Kane II. Harrison owes Michaela for preventing him from losing himself to depression as a teen, and he feels he owes her family even more. Harrison’s father was a Horrible Human Being who eventually committed suicide; he was practically raised by the Langtry’s. To add more drama, some would say melodrama, the reader learns early on of a Big Secret known only to Harrison: his mother kidnapped Michaela’s baby sister years before and then disappeared, causing the Langtry family years of heartache. There’s more to that story, but suffice it to say that it’s even more melodramatic and creates more internal conflict for poor Harrison.

When Michaela comes home to wallow in self-pity, Harrison gives her a job as news anchor, head of programming and fundraising at his new television station. He makes it clear he’s offering her the job because he knows she’s good at what she does and he respects her work, but he also lets her know he wants more than friendship.

There are several subplots involving Michaela’s great-great grandfather Zachariah’s journal, a search to reunite the legendary six gold Langtry coins by the villain Aaron Gallagher, and Roark Langtry’s search for Cleopatra (Zachariah’s wife) Langtry’s journal and wedding ring.

This book’s big problem is Michaela. Every time someone does something nice for her she bristles. Her brother Roark goes to visit her in New York to give moral support and she tears into him, telling him he’s out of his league and to leave her alone. Her mother encourages her to take up painting again as a stress reliever and Michaela blows off the suggestion. When she learns that Harrison displays her watercolor paintings and photos in his home, she yells at him to take them down – not once, but over and over through the course of a dinner date. He offers a job doing everything but running the TV station and she’s not happy because she can’t do meteorology (apparently weather is her thing. She doesn’t use computers but some ancient Native American knowledge passed down in her blood to predict the weather). He advises her to stay away from a rival named Gallagher and she ignores him, even though she knows Gallagher’s not a good guy. Every time you turn the page Michaela is unhappy about something, and if she’s talking to Harrison she’s most likely yelling or arguing. It’s hard to warm up to a character that’s so contentious.

Harrison is the only thing that makes the story bearable. Despite the fact that both of his parents were horrible he somehow grows up to be an honest man. He wants to return honor to his family name. Of course he’s gruff and short, but you can tell he honestly cares for Michaela, especially since he puts up with all her whining and complaining, and he definitely cares for her family.

Harrison isn’t enough to save this story. The journal entries of Zachariah Langtry don’t fit with the story and often destroy the flow of the prose. The story itself is supposed to be romantic suspense, but there is no suspense. We know from the beginning who stole Sable Langtry, we know what Aaron Gallagher is up to from the moment he shows up half way through the book. What we don’t know is why he needs all six coins (nor was there ever any significance on why there were six and not say four or five or twenty).

The villain’s obsession with his incipient baldness, and his belief that the Langtry coins will work like the Hair Club for men, is a refreshing way to display insanity. But the closing fight scene was hokey, especially with the bear appearing mystically like a scene from Legends of the Fall.

Harrison is a wonderful hero, and the Langtrys are very nice people. If we could only ship Michaela back to New York and lose the journal entries, this might have been a good story.