4 1/2 stars I've been promising myself a Janet Dailey read since she passed away not long ago so when I found one I hadn't read, I was ready to go.This is the story about a hero who is plug ugly. The sort of ugly that makes nice girls recoil. I kind of visualise Jack Palance with the prominent cheekbones and after his nose was broken so it was flattened. The sort of looks that means playing the bad guy in a movie rather than the hero.Layne is an attractive, confident woman who normally wouldn't look twice at a man like Creed Dawson, but when she finds her long lost birth mother, she is thrown into his company working on the ranch he co-owns with her mother.Somehow things change and she starts to see beyond his looks to the vulnerable and lonely man inside. As their relationship deepens it is complicated by the fact that she is asking him to keep a secret from his partner. Layne is afraid if she reveals who she is to her mother, she'll be kicked out and she doesn't want to go, especially as it means leaving Creed.Creed at first glance seems to be just a big bear of a man, gruff and silent. We learn that he hasn't a great deal of experience with women and probably they aren't the wine and dine sort but the crisp cash on the bedside table kind. But we start to see how his feelings of self worth make it hard to him to believe Layne really cares, especially as she needs to keep him sweet so he wont reveal her secret.With all that going on it is no wonder things go belly up. The ending was lovely and quite moving.
