Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Warm Up With The Wilders, Part 2

We continued our stay at Wilder Adventures this week in “Instant Gratification” by Jill Shalvis, to spend some time with yet another charming Wilder brother, Stone Wilder. While Cam (Stone’s baby brother) and Katie (Cam’s girlfriend) are off touring the world looking for adventures of their own, Stone and TJ are left to run Wilder Adventures located in the majestic Sierras Mountains.

Dr. Emma Sinclair is used to the extreme fast pace of her New York City Emergency Room. As she flips the sign from “closed” to “open” on her father’s Urgent Care, nestled in the quiet town of Wishful, CA, she braces herself for the onslaught of boredom in “Mayberry USA”. After learning of her father’s heart attack, Emma flew 3000 miles across the country to run Doc’s clinic while he recovers. What she got in return was to treat bee stings, stomach flus, the occasional pet cat and payment in the form of casseroles. While managing to get nothing out of her father about his condition, Emma is itching to get back to New York until she get the most interesting case of her career.

Stone sat on the exam table, covered in blood, mud and a whole lot of what looked like road rash. Emma gave the mountain bum a once over, grabbed some supplies and was ready to get to work. There were two things she had not anticipated; a) the large order of “Tall, Dark and Hansom” sitting in front of her was deathly afraid of the needle in her hand, looking at her like she was coming at him with a butcher knife and b) although he was bloody and covered in mud, just the sight of him had her wanting to break every Doctor-Patient rule known to man.

Convinced Emma belongs back in Wishful, where she was born, Stone begins the hardest trek of his life; teaching Emma there is more to life than work. After losing a few bets and sending out accidental distress calls that had TJ (Stone’s old brother) interrupting an “almost” skinny dipping swim in a hidden lake, Emma begins to learn the truth about Stone. This man is much more than the “mountain bum” she had proclaimed him to be. Learning Stone is the glue that holds his family together, a mentor to at risk boys, volunteer for Search & Rescue, and most of all the man solely responsible for saving her father’s life, Emma’s carefully placed wall around her heart begins to crack and fall away. Always guarded by the hurt in her life, Emma also learns some hard truths about both her parents; a mother, God rest her soul, who was not the woman she thought and a father who was there for her more than she ever knew. Flooded with guilt and worry, Emma finds out that her father’s condition is much worse than he had let on and there is no way he can return to work full time. With no other choice but to sale, Emma helps Doc pick out a respective buyer for the clinic so that she can finally return to NY.

If you want to spend some time daydreaming about beautiful mountain bike rides through the mountains and gorgeous men, topped with one of the world’s most frustrating women, I highly recommend “Instant Gratification”. Captivated by her love stories and semi-smut novels, I am a fan of all her series thus far.

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