4.5 Smooches!
Synopsis
When Ronan Sharpe unexpectedly left Colorado for parts unknown, he took a piece of Keely Carmichael’s heart with him.
After leaving his hellish roots behind him, Ronan found contentment when he started over. Thoughts of the past had been pushed down for so long; he hardly thought about it at all.
He intended to keep it that way.
When unexpected circumstances force Ronan to return to Colorado, the Keely he finds is no longer the adolescent girl he remembered. Torn between desire and fear, Ronan struggles with his feelings for Keely and his need to escape the town that scarred him so deeply years ago.
Letting go is all Ronan’s ever known. Will he realize a life with Keely is something he should hold onto at any cost?
Review
“Don’t ever forget your worth—not even for a minute.”
Fourteen-year-old Keely Carmichael had one person in her young life she could count on for normalcy and support – Ronan Sharpe. Following the death of her mother, she had no choice but to grow up fast. With a father who largely ignored her and made it painfully clear that she was a distant second to her half-sister, Izzy, a sister who couldn’t – and didn’t – tolerate her, she was barely an afterthought at home. The only bright spot in her young life was her friendship with her older neighbor, Ronan. It was, that is, until he suddenly showed up on her doorstep on his way out of town to say goodbye.
“Hell would freeze over before he returned.”
Adopted into a horribly dysfunctional family and dubbed the “Band-Aid Baby,” life in Colorado wasn’t very kind to twenty-one year old Ronan Sharpe. Following the death of his alcoholic and uncaring mother, his cruel and abusive brother, Will, was all that was left of his horror show of a family. He left Colorado abruptly on the very same day that he discovered the truth about his girlfriend, Tiffany, the girl he thought he was in love with and would be marrying. He vowed never to return to Fort Collins, and aside from his best friend, Canter, and the sweet little neighbor girl he’d befriended, he had no other ties to the place he’d called home up to this point in his life.
“You girls need me here, so here’s where I’ll be until you don’t.”
Seven years later, a middle-of-the-night phone call changes everything when he learns that his brother was killed in a car accident, and Will’s girlfriend, Izzy, Keely’s older sister, managed to deliver a healthy baby girl before she succumbed to her injuries. Keely was also in the car, and her injuries rendered her unconscious. As the baby’s only living relative, he needed to return to Colorado quickly to care for her. Upon regaining consciousness, Keely explained that Izzy had told her that she was a surrogate, but things didn’t add up, and Keely never truly believed that story. While she is recovering in the hospital, the truth comes out, and Keely learns that Izzy had elaborately planned for her to take the baby all along.
“My feelings for him weren’t just back—they were stronger than ever.”
With her own injuries to recover from, Ronan decides to stay on to help Keely get her feet under her as a new mother. Living within the close confines of Keely’s tiny studio apartment, working together as a parental team, and the startling realization that the little neighbor girl is now a knock-out, wreak havoc on Ronan’s emotions. He’s wildly attracted to Keely and falling deeper in love with the baby every day. Keely, who crushed on Ronan for the majority of her life, was battling a resurgence of her own feelings. Bonding together as parents for this precious baby girl only compounded their feelings for each other.
“I was right where I was supposed to be, and I’d never felt better.”
Ronan has some issues to work through in his mind before he can embrace what he’s feeling for Keely and “put it all on the line.” His main issue is the fact that she’s only nineteen. But, ever the mature one, it is Keely who puts her age in perspective for him, and, after some well timed words of wisdom from Canter sink in, Ronan takes the leap of faith he hadn’t ever planned on taking again.
Ella Fox has written another hit in All That’s Left to Hold Onto. It’s a sweet friends-to-lovers story that’s well written, funny and – once Ronan accepted his fate as Keely’s man and Emma’s dad – very sexy. So, it’s 4.5 smooches from me for Ella Fox’s All That’s Left to Hold Onto!
~ Danielle Palumbo
