First grade teacher and single mother Alexa Harris is no stranger to struggle, but for once, things are looking up. The school year is over and the lazy days of summer are here. Mini-vacations and relaxing twilight barbeques are on the horizon until Alexa’s free-spirited younger sister vanishes.
Ransom calls and death threats force Alexa and her young daughter to flee their quiet home in … home in Maryland. With nowhere else to turn, Alexa seeks the help of Jackson Matthews, Ethan Cooke Security’s Risk Assessment Specialist and the man who broke her heart.
With few leads to follow and Abby’s case going cold, Alexa must confess a shocking secret if she and Jackson have any hope of saving her sister from a hell neither could have imagined.
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Cate Beauman doesn’t disappoint in Forever Alexa, the fourth book in the LA Bodyguards series. While it is formulaic, there are enough twists that it holds the reader’s attention. It is a romantic suspense, after all. You’re pretty sure there’s going to be a happy ending.
Jackson and Alexa were college sweethearts and had it all. They were planning their future; everything was planned out. Their life was going to be idyllic. Jackson graduated with his criminal justice degree and secured a job with a PD force a couple hours away from the college where Alexa continued her studies. Jackson drives down for his normal weekend visit, but out of the blue, he breaks everything off. He just can’t do it anymore. He doesn’t want Alexa. She is so blindsided by this declaration that she doesn’t know what to do. So she watches him drive away and tries to deal with the fact she’ll never see him again.
Fast forward four years. After a celebratory vacation to the beach, Alexa is traveling home with her three-year-old daughter and her sister. She desperately has to make a pitstop. She has an uneasy feeling about stopping, but Abby, her sister, convinces Alexa that she’s a worrywart and nothing is going to happen in the five minutes it’ll take Alexa to run to the bathroom. Famous last words….as Alexa comes out the door she sees Abby being dragged from their car and stuffed into a van. The police are immediately called and a full report is made. Alexa realizes after a few days that the police aren’t really doing much about the kidnapping. She’s on her own.
After running into an old college friend, Alexa decides to contact Jackson, who is out in LA working for Ethan Cooke Security. As much as she doesn’t want to, she has run out of options and needs the help of someone she knows she can trust. And she does know that she can trust Jackson even though he broke her heart. Meanwhile, Jackson can’t wait to get home after his latest assignment. He’s finally going to do it. He’s going to take the next step in moving on with his life. He’s ready to take his relationship with Ev to the next level. He’s ready to finally let dreams of Alexa go. Oh, yeah. He realized his mistake and you’ll eventually find out why he didn’t do anything about getting Alexa back all those years ago.
When Alexa talks Jackson into helping her, the action begins to take off. Flying from one coast to the other, trying to get the police and federal agents to cooperate, dealing with the secrets each have held from one another, it can’t help but get interesting. There were times I got really annoyed with Alexa, she was so one track minded that she was willing to take risks I think were totally out of line. But, I guess that’s what kept the action going. So far, this has been a good series and I’ve enjoyed it.
This is the fourth book in this series and the stories keep getting better. This author has had me in tears during all of the three previous but this one takes the cake. This one features Jackson “Jack” Matthews. Four years ago Jack made the biggest mistake of his life when he broke up with his college girlfriend. Now Alexa “Alex” Harris is in need of Jack’s help. Her sister Abby was kidnapped from her car while returning from vacation and now the kidnappers are threatening her three year old daughter. She hopes a plane to LA when she finds out where Jack now lives. Needles to say, Jack is shocked to see his old flame but the biggest surprise is a three year old daughter who is his spitting image. We has action, adventure, romance, fighting, cops and Feds more concerned about their own agenda, sleazy men who trap innocents in sex trafficking, two loving parents/grandparents, a ridiculously cute child, a woman who is willing to do anything for her sister, a man fighting to protect the woman he loves, and some seriously hot steamy scenes.
It saddens me to say that I didn’t enjoy this one as much as I hoped I would. I found that Alex always thought she knows best and she didn’t take anything Jack had to say seriously, which was really annoying. I understand she wanted to find her sister, but she went about it all wrong. Her being stubborn only caused her daughter to be in danger.
I really like Jack. I felt to bad for him, missing out on years of his daughters life. Alex really should have reached out, no matter how hurt she was. No one deserves not knowing that they have a child, but he took the deception quite well and he is so natural with Olivia.
To be honest, I was more interested in Abby’s abduction and how it will all play out than in romance between Jack and Alex. I was just not invested in their relationship, and it’s more of Alex’s doing than it is Jack’s. I just didn’t like the constant hot and cold, the constant disagreeing with Jack and then apologizing, only to disagree with him again. It got tedious after a while. I wish she would just let Jack do what he was trained to do.
On the other hand, we got Hailey and Austin’s wedding, which positively impacted the reading experience for me. They still remain my favourite couple so I loved seeing them getting their happily ever after.
Additionally, I cannot wait for Abby’s story and see who will be the lucky guy that will help her heal.