Wandering Heart

One week after asking Cooper to take over as farm manager, Angela is frustrated.  She and Greg have interviewed the men who had answered the ad they’d placed, only one of the ten men was acceptable and he would only be unavailable at times because of his own family.  Decisions have to be made but could she give up the farmhouse and land she’s grown to love? Or should she give up her job in town, but they’d come to count on the extra money her job brought in.  Seeing Cooper pull up on his Harley reinstalls a sense of hope and when he tells her that he’s willing to take the job she has to restrain herself to keep from hugging him.  After showing Cooper the lay of the land, she has him settled into the guestroom of her home until she can get the bungalow cleaned up.  Angel, as Coop calls her, has gone to bed and is in the middle of a hauntingly beautiful dream when Josh calls to check on her, he’d spent the night at a friend’s house and wanted to make sure she was all right and didn’t need him to come home.  Once Josh hears that she’s not alone and there’s a man sleeping in the guestroom, he starts to become agitated until he realizes that she’d also said that Cooper had known his dad, then he becomes excited about meeting somebody that might be willing to talk about his father.  The prospect of this situation ticking off Greg, who Josh doesn’t like, is a big plus as well.  Angela believes she’s doing the right thing by marrying the prospective congressman, but is that a mother looking for a father for her child or a woman with genuine feelings for a man?  And if she really has feelings for him, then why is she so attracted to Cooper?

Once again, Rita Hestand does not disappoint her readers.  Wandering Heart is the perfect family romance.  Angela, being a single mother for ten years wants to provide a father figure for her son, so she picks the sort of man her parents would have wanted her to pick, even though there is no romance between them.  When Cooper rides in on his Harley, she’s torn between the man her mind says is the perfect man, and the one her heart says is the only man for her.  Cooper had been attracted to Angela when they were teenagers, that hasn’t changed.  If anything it’s more intense now, and watching her date the congressman is the hardest thing he’s ever done.  Josh is the ideal ten-year-old, still young enough to get into things but old enough to be on the verge of manhood.  ‘Listening’ in on Josh and Cooper interactions with each other gives you insight into this special young man.  I developed a fondness for both Cooper and Josh and practically cheered when Angela and Cooper finally got together, I think I went through every emotion there is while reading this book and finally finished it with a good feeling for all of the characters . . .  even the ones I initially didn’t like!  Wandering Heart is a book well worth reading and one you’ll want to add to your bookshelf to read for years to come.