A town called End Of The Line, Montana is the nearest stop to the Kinnison Ranch, on the slopes of the Continental Divide. With snow coming in, near Christmas, Wyatt Kinnison wants to separate a calf from a wire fence and ride home. He barely gets hot food on the table however when a strange woman dressed in city casuals knocks at his door, lost. He tries to advise her on weather preparedness and directs her to town. She's the new second-grade teacher, and Aimee Worth is her name, though Wyatt hadn't asked, unused to female company.

Wyatt's brothers Dalton and Rein complete a trio of RUGGED HEARTS but the other two are away closing a deal for cattle, and a major storm front closes down, making it unlikely they can return for a while. Wyatt heads to town to pick up groceries before he gets snowed in, and he meets the mouthy, pretty, fluffy woman, as he thinks of her, at the store. Both of them are surprised when he kisses her outside. Wyatt doesn't trust women - his mother left unexpectedly and his cute wife whom he met at the local bar headed back there to meet other men during their brief marriage. So he has no intention of getting any closer to this sassy little lady. Of course the whole town knows everyone's gossip, so soon Aimee does too. Wyatt keeps in touch with the world over the internet, closing the distances for him, and privately he's also taking an online creative writing class. Not that he'd ever admit it....

Amanda McIntyre has placed two distinctly different but modern characters in her Western romance and played them against each other. There is a Christmas which turns out to be much more interesting than the reticent rancher could have imagined, and deferred romance although the pair feel sparks from early in the story. I enjoyed the wildlife descriptions and the backdrop of the mountains, and the way that the modern technology can connect people who would in previous years have been isolated. I was dubious that everyone Aimee met would instantly tell her all about the personal lives of other locals, and I also thought that the new teacher might have done better to make friends with the ladies in town before asking a shy, introverted rancher to have coffee with her. RUGGED HEARTS is an enjoyable character-based adult novel which makes us see that the times they are a changin'.

Book Summary

Rugged, quiet, hardworking, Wyatt takes his position as head of the Kinnison family seriously. But the scars of betrayal by the women to whom he once trusted his heart now prompt his stark, simple game plan, and no one in hell is going to convince him any differently. What matters most, besides the welfare of his brothers, is to manage the ranch left to him and never risk his heart again to something as foolish as love—but after meeting Aimee, Wyatt begins to realize that a man should never say never to a determined second grade teacher.

When vivacious, resilient Aimee Worth loses her twin sister in a tragic accident, she makes the choice to live out her sister's dream of teaching in the small mountain community called End of the Line, Montana, never suspecting she'd meet her Mr. Right in the middle of nowhere—he just doesn't know it yet. Used to challenges, her spirit shatters the perceptions that have kept him isolated from living life beyond the ranch, proving to him that when it comes to love, the greatest risk is not taking one.