When is a handyman not a handyman? When he’s the hero of a romance novel! Handyman heroes are always really something else, except for the hero of Linda Nichols’ The Handyman (but then he was pretending to be a psychiatrist). In Moonglow, Texas the handyman in question is actually a federal agent working for the witness protection program. I’ve been reading a lot of historicals lately, so when I saw the cover of this book with a hero wearing flip-flops, I decided it would be just the escape I needed. While several parts of the plot don’t hold up to tremendous scrutiny, this is basically a fun and pleasant read.

Molly Hansen of Moonglow, Texas isn’t really Molly Hansen – she’s actually Kathryn Claiborn, a business professor from an eastern university. Since she saw a colleague killed by a radical group called Red Millennium, she has been living with a new identity in the witness protection program. Unbeknownst to her, Dan Shakelford is also living near Moonglow. Dan is a Federal Marshal, but the devastating loss of his partner hit him very hard, and he has been on medical leave for months. He has returned to Moonglow because he spent much of his youth here, earning a bad reputation. His chief medication comes in a bottle from the liquor store; it’s the only way he can deal with what he perceives as his failure.

When Witness Protection has a computer breach, every agent is called in to help protect key witnesses – even Marshals on medical leave. Since Dan is close by, he is assigned to Molly. No one wants to alarm her, so he pretends to be a handyman sent by Witness Protection to fix up her dilapidated home. And you can pretty much guess what will happen from here. Molly and Dan are attracted to each other, but Dan is still feeling like a failure who is unworthy of a real relationship. There are also secrets between them; it takes Molly quite a while to figure out that Dan isn’t just a handyman. Meanwhile, there is also the potential danger from Red Millennium, and Dan has to overcome the prejudice of some of the townspeople who think he’s still the same bad boy he was in high school.

With such a short format, it’s not surprising that the author takes some shortcuts here and there. Molly and Dan fall in love in about a week, but I wasn’t sure exactly why that happened. One minute they had just met, and then they began a sexual relationship, and the next thing you know they are both thinking of happily ever after. Some of details about the witness protection program didn’t make a whole lot of sense. For someone who is supposed to be watching Molly’s every move, Dan isn’t always as careful as he could be, and I never did understand why he couldn’t just announce his identity in the first place instead of pretending to be a handyman. Sure she might have been worried, but worried people are more careful; she really should have been warned.

But while this book is certainly not perfect, it has several touches that make it quite an enjoyable read. I usually get impatient with heroes who find their solace in a bottle, but Dan stopped that fairly quickly once he had to protect Molly. Dan is moody, but I also found him funny, and I liked his laid-back, flip-flop-wearing persona. He’s also a horrible handyman, which provides some humor. The sub-plot involving the townspeople of Moonglow was fun as well. Most of his former neighbors aren’t surprised to discover that he’s just a drifter (even though he really isn’t), but all the women seem to remember how well he kissed when he was seventeen. All the secondary characters could have come off like stereotypical backwater hicks, but they all have more to them than that – even the obnoxious local sheriff.

I also found McBride’s writing style to be very smooth. The dialogue and the characters thoughts are often witty, and the book is a good fast read. Many of the series romances I have read have a choppy feel to them, but that wasn’t a problem here. While I wouldn’t pick this up if you’re looking for an in depth character study or an inside look into the witness protection program, it provides a fun evening’s read if you want something a little lighter.