When Kate McAuley met and fell in love with Lucas Barone she knew that his job as a forensic accountant involved a lot of travel, but she never expected that one day he would leave on a business trip and simply never return. Being abandoned by the man she thought she would spend the rest of her life with broke Kate's heart. When another tragedy happened shortly after Luke's betrayal it devastated her and made her rethink her life. After 18 months she has finally gotten to a place where she feels that she's in control and able to cope again. She's not the same person she once was, but she's surviving. Then one night she answers a knock on her door and finds Lucas bleeding and barely conscious on her front porch.
Kate has a million questions. Where has Luke been? Why did he come back? Who would beat up an accountant and leave him for dead? The only way that Luke can persuade her not to call the police is to promise that as soon as he's had some rest he'll answer her questions and then leave. Giving Kate the answers she wants and deserves is a huge risk for Luke because he's not an accountant. That was simply a cover he used to explain the frequent trips required by his actual job in covert operations.
In all his time undercover Kate was the only person he really loved. He never planned to stay away from her for so long, but his last op went terribly wrong and Luke ended up in a South American prison. When he finally made it back to Washington he discovered evidence that he had been betrayed by someone in his own agency. Before he could figure out who it was his enemies caught up with him. In desperation he turns to Kate because she's the only person he feels sure that he can trust. Unfortunately for both of them Luke didn't cover his tracks as well as he thought and they're soon on the run, desperately trying to prove a conspiracy that goes higher up in the government than either of them could have imagined.
I should have known that this book was going to have a lot of problems when I realized that the back cover copy must have referred to an earlier edit. It said that Luke had been gone for four years, but the book said only 18 months. I wish that had been the worst of it, but it wasn't even close. There were so many issues that it's hard to know where to start. Cullen's basic research was poor. She gets small things wrong, like the fact that virtually no one in DC calls the airport Ronald Reagan National Airport. It's just National. She also gets more obvious things wrong. Luke supposedly owns a townhouse in Georgetown. "Government operative" is not a lucrative job. Luke is likely at about a GS-11 and there is no way that someone at that salary level can afford real estate in Georgetown unless he inherited money or married it.
I was even more bothered by the fact that Luke was presented as some sort of super spy, but his tradecraft is terrible. When he and Kate make their initial getaway he steals a car from long term parking at the local airport. That makes sense since there's a good chance that no one will report it missing for quite a while. Unfortunately that's about the only smart move he makes. He keeps a hideout that's supposed to be his safehouse and he and Kate head there. They drive the same stolen care the whole way and use Luke's only “secure” fake ID for everything as they travel. It never seems to occur to Luke that if someone discovers the car missing he's creating a trail that will be a snap to follow. That's something a professional should really have considered since he has no way of being sure when the car's owner is due to return.
A professional would probably also have made different choices when he set up his safehouse. He probably wouldn't have located it in the county where his only friend from the agency is now the sheriff since anyone looking for him is going to check out his known associates. He would also not have made it luxurious enough to make people question why it's so nice when the owner is so rarely there. (Again, where does Luke get his money?) He should also have made more than a token effort to disguise himself when he's in town. Given how little Luke changes his appearance a professional questioning the locals would have very little difficulty discovering that he's the part-time resident.
Luke makes the same mistake when changing Kate's appearance. While Luke was gone Kate went through several hair styles and colors. Luke's idea of a disguise is to have her switch back to the exact way she looked when they were living together. That's not likely to fool anyone, let alone the professional spies who are supposedly chasing them. There were many other problems, including the identity of Luke's enemy, but it would be far too much trouble to list them all.
There should be a term to describe this kind of romantic suspense novel. I think “wallpaper suspense” could work. Just like “wallpaper historicals” books like this are a cheat. There's no real effort made to create believable suspense or characters whose actions make sense given their supposed jobs. The plot is just an easy way to put the hero and heroine together under pressure so that they can have hot sex. I'm a fan of the hot sex, but not the sloppy storytelling. The only thing that I can say in the book's favor is that, aside from the fact that they're incredibly stupid about birth control/STD prevention, I found both Luke and Kate likable. I would have enjoyed them if they had been in a better book.
Grade: D
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