Reviewed by Stephen K.
TITLE: Down and Out
SERIES: (Down Home #3)
AUTHOR: Parker St. John
PUBLISHER: Self published
LENGTH: 302 pages
RELEASE DATE: November 18th 2021
BLURB:
His dark secret drove away the only boy he ever loved.
Nate:
Healer. Savior. Cynic.
The one person Nate could never ignore was Tucker Grace. He’s as cruel as he is gorgeous, with a devastating loneliness in his cold blue eyes.
Nate ditched his hell-raising childhood for the big city and a string of disastrous relationships. He’s a man people rely on, but he’s tired of fixing other people’s problems. So when a family crisis brings him home for the first time in years, the last thing Nate wants is to be drawn to the cruel cowboy he left in the dust.
Tucker is smoke and shadows, fury and calm, and as wild as the horses he tames. He looks at Nate like he craves him.
But Nate knows better than anyone that Tucker isn’t capable of love.
And even if he was…he’s straight.
Tucker:
Villain. Survivor. Cowboy.
The only thing Tucker ever wanted was Nate Silva, so he drove him away. Hard.
He never expected he’d come back.
Tucker has spent years clawing his way up from nothing. Ranch life taught him to control his savage temper, and his talent for breaking untamable horses earned him respect. He’s found peace.
Nate’s return threatens all that.
When a traumatized stallion forces them together, Tucker’s tightly reined control starts to fray. Nate’s soft eyes and softer mouth stir a lust that threatens everything Tucker has built.
Everything in him wants to claim Nate as his own…but dark secrets lurk in Tucker’s past.
He can’t trust himself with something as fragile as another man’s heart.
Even if it breaks his own.
REVIEW:
I observed in book two that the strong silent types, especially cowboys, often make the worst narrators. This book is a bit better in that regard as the chosen main character is not a cowboy but a veterinarian.
We’re back in Sweetwater Oregon which is cowboy country. It’s a small town and Nate left it long ago to become a vet and to experience being gay in a place that’s more accepting than rural small-town Oregon. Problem is his mom’s got some health issues, and his sis’s husband passed and Nate’s returning to take care of his family.
The problem is also Tucker Grace. Tucker was Nate’s soulmate growing up. Tucker pretty much raised himself after his dad left – his mom turned to drugs and the wrong kind of boyfriends to ease her pain. As boys, Tucker and Nate were inseparable – until Nate’s sexual attraction and Tucker’s growing outbursts of rage split their friendship down the middle leaving both a little broken.
Nate’s had gay sex but he’s never had what he wanted. What he thought he wanted, when he thought about Tucker. Nate is now back and is more in control of his desires. He finds out that Tucker is still a bit of a loose cannon. But he is a bit calmer after getting involved with horse training. Trying “equine therapy” in an anger management camp he attended helped… a lot.
The two are now forced to deal with each other again,. partly by proximity and partly in that Nate is the vet to the ranch where Tucker is working. That, and by a troubled mustang that Tucker is trying to “gentle.”
I’ve often referred to cowboys as hard headed men, but it turns out that Tucker needed to be harder headed than he was. Part of his anger issues stem from an undiagnosed TBI (Traumatic Brian Injury) That the horse he was “gentling” had a similar condition was a nice (if somewhat sappy) touch
I liked this book and didn’t miss the second POV as much as I did in the earlier books in this series. The POV we do get here is that of a more communicative individual. It was also nice to get some more background on Calvin Craig from book one. And seeing Calvin and Eli together was a treat.
This is perhaps the most credible gay-for-you tale I’ve read in a while, It’s not so much that Tucker is bi-sexual, he’s just pretty much Nate-sexual. The two grew so close as kids that nothing, not even his deep seated conviction that he’s bad news and unworthy of anything with Nate, will keep them apart.
This is my favorite book of the series so far and if my “gaydar” is functional I’m guessing that there’s romance ahead for Briar Phillips, the veterinary assistant that followed Nate to Sweetwater. Here’s hoping.
RATING: 
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