“Home
Let me come home
Home is wherever I’m with you.” ― Edward Sharpe
The old saying goes that “home is where the heart is;” not where your own heart is but where the heart is to which you belong. There is a difference between being home and being in a place that gives you shelter. There is a difference between a roof over your head and a safe place to land at the end of the day. There is a difference between having someplace to be and having someone who is your refuge.
There is a difference between being coveted for what you have and being wanted for who you are, a difference between getting what you want and giving what you need. When a man finds the one person who recognizes the difference between being used and being loved, that’s the someone who goes beyond a want and becomes a necessity, the one who strips away all the other fears ever felt because there is nothing quite as terrifying as the idea of that person not being a part of your life.
As much as Aaron Sutter and Duncan Stiel might have believed at one time that Jory Harcourt and Nathan Qells were the men they cared for more than any other, Jory and Nate were merely the templates against which Aaron and Duncan will now measure the difference between lust and love, the difference between a substitute and substance. The difference between being in love with someone, and loving the someone you’re with.
Parting Shot is their story, the blueprint Mary Calmes has drafted that plots the building of the foundation of Aaron and Duncan’s relationship, a relationship that is filled with danger, and decisions, and indecision, and sacrifice, and the hunger to belong to each other even if it means that that belonging might promise losing as much as gaining.
This wouldn’t be a book in the A Matter of Time-verse if there wasn’t plenty of intrigue and undercover ops with the criminal element that sets our heroes right in the midst of a few sticky situations, including a case in which one Sam Kage is back again at his growly best. Like the wordsmither she is, Mary plants the seeds of all this action amidst the romance and the purely erotic moments between the billionaire business mogul and his Detective lover who are now bound to each other out of want and need and the primal desire to belong.
It also wouldn’t be a Mary Calmes book if there weren’t a few bumps in the road to Aaron and Duncan’s happy beginning, and there’s a doozy in this one that, ugh, plucked out a sad little tune on my poor heartstrings, but like Mary always does so capably, she played all the right notes and brought everything to a close in perfect harmony.
Word is that this will be the last book set in the world that Jory and Sam built. Well, I wouldn’t have missed this one for the world and would recommend you don’t either.
Reviewed by: Lisa
You can buy Parting Shot here:
Love me some Mary Calmes!
I’m gonna cry little heart out at the end, I just know it. I LOVE the world of Sam & Jory.
Kathleen, I looooooved this book. I thought I might miss Jory a little, but Aaron and Duncan are both such strong men and the story so action packed that I didn’t have time to miss him