Sara’s Last Resort
Kendra Vasquez
Contemporary Western
Educated automotive technician Sara McDaniels drives her truck off the road in a small, Rocky Mountain town. She never intended needing another mechanic in her life, but Jason Cole, Sauk City’s only grease monkey, has the resources she needs. After abandoning Denver, Colorado, with its cheats and liars in the auto repair business, she has no reason to trust Jason, but, after she meets his intense gray gaze, her defenses weaken. Her fierce will builds up walls, ever wary, for how can she learn the truth about him without revealing her hopes and heart in the process?
Jason Cole must salvage his shop from a greasy pit of fraud, compliments of his ex-employee. Hearing of Sara’s arrival in town and her background in automotive, he seeks her out and finds her completely unwilling to cooperate. Her education could get his shop back on track, but her prejudice keeps anything automotive-related at bay. He takes the personal route, discovers the mountains are her natural element, and stumbles upon her more fragile side. The last thing he’d planned was getting lost tracing trails in her wide, forest-green eyes. He holds off telling Sara about his business’ fraudulent past. If he breaks her burgeoning trust, it may be the one thing he can’t rebuild.
Neither of them wants Jason’s business to fail. Sara means to see this through to the end, see if Jason can exceed her expectations. When she discovers his secrets, will Jason’s past make her run again, or is he truly her last resort?
Uncaged Review: Now this was a totally unexpected fun book. Sara is an auto technician. She has one semester to complete of school before she is certified. What she discovered was how the biggest share of mechanics are frauds. They will take the customer for what they can get without realizing they are losing the repeat service. She is looking for one “car shop with an honest reputation which would offer real employment.”
Sara is staying with her best friend Lauryl and working as a vet assistant and at the opening she is on her way to work when her truck breaks down. She discovers it will need a new pivot arm or a tow.
Enter Jason, the local mechanic. She denies having car trouble when she realizes who he is. She thinks of him as ‘the mechanic’ who would take her for an arm and a leg to repair her truck and negating her attraction to the big man with the nice voice.
During the story, Sara goes back and forth with whether she can trust him or not. Jason meanwhile does what he can to find out why she isn’t working as a technician/mechanic thinking she may be a fraud. He is worried about her finding out how he had hired a mechanic who committed fraud while working for him.
Jason tries to get past her defenses by talking and doing things which aren’t related to car repair. He is attracted to her and wants her to stay, but he also needs her help. He decides to do a deal. He will show her the area for the weekend and she will help him with a car where he can’t find the problem.
Enter Cameron, who tries to get a date with Sara then to guess Sara’s real name when she says it is related to an alcoholic beverage. (Syrah) He makes a play for her, but it doesn’t work.
Throughout the book, there is a back and forth between Jason and Sara. Cameron keeps trying, but Sara lets him know she isn’t interested. She and Jason share who they began in automotive repair. It brings them closer together.
As she begins to trust Jason, her world comes crashing down when she finds a box of receipts when she helps a lady who told her where the receipts showing fraud were kept. She repairs the woman’s car, but decides it’s time to lock up her heart and say goodbye to him.
Jason discovers she had found the box of receipts he kept, attempting to make thing right with those who were scammed. He goes after her and tells her the truth about the guy he had hired who was a fraud and how he was still picking up the pieces from what the man had done. He leaves, letting her decide if she wants him or now.
She ends up going to him only to discover, he had solved the riddle of her name and her.
You could feel Sara’s mistrust of Jason and all mechanics while she is attracted to him as a person. Jason’s worry that she is like the man he had hired keeps him from fully trusting her. It’s easy to see in the way he keeps backing off from having her help him. Of course, I’m a sucker for the happy endings.
I loved the originality of the characters and the automotive theme. It’s one which I haven’t seen before in the quick read romances. I’ll give it 5 stars for originality and being well written. Reviewed by Barbara
5 Stars
