Love Me At Sunset by Lucinda Whitney

From Goodreads:
An ex-con reforming his life. A pregnant widow hiding her past. Will the price of her secrets cost her his love?

Catarina Romano has lost everything: her husband, her house, her lifestyle. She flees to her cousin’s empty manor in the heart of Portugal, trying to find peace and to hide from the scandal spun by the media, only to discover she is pregnant.

Afonso Cortez is done with all the lies. Fresh out of prison for trusting the wrong person, he’s ready to leave the past behind and look ahead to new opportunities. The remote Sunset Manor, in need of a groundskeeper, is the perfect solution, promising to provide Afonso with the solitude he craves while he restores the grounds to their former glory.

Catarina avoids Afonso at first, not wanting to further complicate her life. But Afonso is intriguing, and she feels drawn to him. If only she didn’t feel guilty for all the secrets she’s keeping from him.

When suspicious accidents start occurring at the property, Afonso believes his past is catching up with him. Will he be able to protect Catarina or will he lose the woman who might restore his belief in love?

My Take: 
What a little gem. I felt for Catarina from the very beginning. You could tell she'd been through some tough times. I was mentally doing the math to figure out how young she was when she married. Although you get what kind of life she led during that marriage, I appreciated that Whitney didn't dig into it too much. However, I often wondered if Catarina would have been even more reticent about falling in love after such an experience. Granted, months go by and she is always surprised at how different Alfonso is to the way her husband had treated her.

Alfonso was such a good man. Some people like reading about bad boys, but I've always loved the good guys. He is caring and gentle, while being strong in his efforts to protect Catarina when his past comes calling. In the end, their love is a true partnership.

I give Love Me At Sunset a solid 4 and a clean rating. The only reason I didn't give a 4.5 is because the timeline felt muddled in places.

1-5 scale and what it means:
1: I couldn’t even finish it / just plain bad
2: I hope I didn’t pay for this / disappointing
3: I didn’t hate it, but it was still missing something / forgettable but inoffensive
3.5: On the line between good and ok / like, not love
4: Solid mind candy / worth reading
4.5: So very close to perfection! / must read
5: I could not put it down and I’m still thinking about it! / a true treasure

Movie Ratings in relation to my review:
Clean--Hallmark movies, some kissing, no nudity, no sex on or off "screen"
PG--Some innuendo but nothing kids don't hear every day, sex is all closed door
PG-13--some language (swear words not related to sex), more talk about sex, heavy petting, removal of clothing on screen, but sex is closed door.
R--swearing (can be related to sex), feels like the whole story is about the sex and not the relationship or some other plot