I began Loves Me, Loves Me Knot feeling pretty good about it. It’s a reunion story where a divorced couple who really love each other, get back together. It also has a knitting background and I like to knit (I’d like the book better if it was about crochet). However, the heroine does something very despicable and I began by disliking her intensely, though she did redeem herself by the end.

Jenna Langan is house-sitting for her Aunt Charlotte, while her aunt is on the craft fair circuit selling handspun knitted goods. It’s not too hard, all Jenna has to do is feed Charlotte’s alpacas and watch the house. Feeling lonely and depressed, Jenna calls her best friends Grace and Ronnie and the three of them proceed to eat lots of Mexican food and get stinking drunk on margaritas. While they are pigging out, Jenna bemoans her lack of a love life. She was married to police detective Gage Marshall and they were crazy in love and lust. However, Jenna wanted children, Gage said no and his refusal to even discuss it broke up the marriage. Jenna has dated but none of her dates have caused any sparks, much less the full blown conflagration she had with Gage. She really, really wants children and so she and her pals hatch a cunning plan.

Pretending that she has a plumbing problem, Jenna calls Gage and begs him to come out and fix it. So, being the nice guy, he does and Jenna gives him a beer – a beer that she and her friends have drugged. Gage is woozy headed and not quite himself, but whatever the drug is, it must be part Viagra because he and Jenna have several bouts of hot, sweaty sex. However, when the drug wears off and Gage discovers Jenna has used him for a sperm donor, he’s furious (I was applauding him) and he tells Jenna that he’s staying with her until he finds out whether or not she’s pregnant because he will not abandon a child. (I was cheering him).

Meanwhile, Jenna’s friend Grace plans to meet her boyfriend Zach, a hockey player. When she shows up at his hotel room, he greets her gladly, but she sees a half-dressed woman in his bed. Despite Zach being as surprised as she is, Grace gives him no opportunity to explain. She goes to his home, destroys his car with a baseball bat, then wrecks his belongings. She even ruins his collection of cherished memorabilia and then finishes by taking his dog and stalking off to her home to get drunk.

Back to Jenna and Gage. She accepts his presence without much complaining (she really, really still loves him). She admires his tattoos (they sounded garish to me) and they begin to talk, then they have sex (with a condom just in case) and soon settle down into a normal life – just like they were married.

After I got over Jenna’s deception, I actually began to kind of like her. She’s sweet, has a kind heart and really loves Gage. Under his bluster, Gage is a nice guy and a dedicated cop, and he still loves Jenna. For a time, their marriage was very happy, but their problems began when he started to work undercover and got nose to nose with the scum of humanity. Gage didn’t want to bring a child into a world filled with the kind of people he had to meet on a daily basis, but he couldn’t express that to Jenna. She is no Pollyanna, but she has more faith in humanity than he does. After some soul searching and conversations with his co-workers, Gage realizes that Jenna is strong, she is right and he loves her and always has. Hopefully now that they realize it, they will continue to talk to each other.

Loves Me, Loves Me Knot began on a bad note for me, but I warmed up to it pretty quickly. Under their reserve, Jenna and Gage were both nice, sensible people and I think they’ve learned that they have to communicate to make their marriage work. I could have done without the Grace sub-plot though. I can’t stand drama queens at all, and she’s a prime specimen. Grace will get her story next, but unless she grovels for half the book, I’ll skip it.