The last cowboy of the title is incredibly bitter, taciturn, abrasive, violent, unforgiving, hard-headed and completely unlikeable. And he’s the good guy. His love interest is a hard-working emergency room doctor who deserves so much better than he that readers will want to shake her into seeing clearly.

Rancher Slade is the older of the twins who were orphaned at age six when a drunken neighbor plowed into their parents’ car. The twins were subsequently split up, Slade going to an uncle who ran the ranch and Griff to an uncle who provided him with a Harvard education.

Besides raising a minimal head of cattle with his one ranch hand and owning one ornery bull, Slade trains riders for long-distance endurance horse races. Slade and his neighbor Curt, son of the man who killed Slade’s parents, have won the big Teton race back and forth for years.

Because of his reputation and spectacular rides, Dr. Jordana Lawton, fresh from winning a harassment lawsuit in New York City, approaches Slade to teach her how to ride and win endurance races.

His painful divorce four years earlier makes Slade reluctant to deal with women, but when Jordana agrees to pay double the price of the men he’s teaching, Slade takes her on as a pupil. Little do readers know at this point that they’ve just seen one of the nicer sides to Slade’s personality in his overcharging Jordana.

As they work together, Slade grows to appreciate Jordana the more as she bucks up and acts like a man. She doesn’t act girly or throw herself at him like the New York hussy who unbelievably Slade fell in love with and married.

Slade can’t spend too much time thinking about Jordana, however, since he has so many things to be bitter about. He has a nearly bankrupt ranch to run. When his twin appears after losing his money on Wall Street, Slade reminds Griff that when Slade asked for money for the ranch and Griff was flush with it, Griff refused his plea for a loan. But since Griff owns half the ranch, Slade can’t legally turn him away.

Then more bad luck hits the surly Slade: His bull gores him in the thigh. Here’s where even the likeable Jordana starts to look shaky. Not only does she drive him into town (because Slade doesn’t want her to call an ambulance even though blood is pumping from his artery) but she also takes him home immediately after the operation to close the wound. No one seems concerned that Slade might be concussed having been tossed several feet by the bull. Nor are they worried he might not have adequate nursing when Jordana is at work. With those kinds of poor decisions, it’s a wonder she wasn’t fighting a malpractice suit before coming to Wyoming.

By this time, I was ready to give up on the incredible and overwritten story in which the author repeated plot points over and over again. Slade was extremely unappealing, Jordana was proving to be the worst doctor in the world, and Griff was a useless whiner who thought he could do ranch work because he regularly went to a gym in the city. Puleeeze!

I sloughed on, however, following an even more improbable plotline that includes a Snidely Whiplash villain and a cartoon finish. While McKenna tries to redeem the rugged, rugged (did I say rugged?) Slade in the latter half of the book, his earlier character traits overshadowed his still bitter but falling in love version.

I kept wondering if McKenna was a novice writer. But no, she’s not! And that’s what made the entire book more puzzling. How could this book have been written by someone with 19 published books under her belt and another in the works? Once again I’m left shaking my head and wondering how the publishing world survives.