Grumpy Protector is another romantic suspense novel set in a small town. Marcus has come to town to work for the police department. Allie grew up in town, but had moved a short distance away some years ago. Her mother and sister still live in town. At the beginning of the story, we are told that Allie's sister has recently died and left behind her daughter Charlotte. She is in the care of the man that her sister was living with at the time, Jeff. Jeff is determined to keep Charlotte, so much so he refuses a paternity test and tries to keep Charlotte away from Allie. Allie suspects that there is more to the story that Jeff tells about the day that her sister died, but there really isn't any proof. She enlists Marcus' help to investigate and he does help with that. While they are investigating, they fall in love. But will the secrets and the investigation come between them?

I liked the pretty much insta-love that happened in this story. These are two more mature characters so they knew that they were finding a good match in each other. The secrets they kept were for legitimate reasons and even though they were hurtful, it made sense. They also had a lot of great talks and were open (for the most part) with each other. I also loved that almost from the minute he met her, Marcus wanted to shield Allie from anything bad that might happen, whether it would be in Jeff's behavior or what might have happened to her sister. He understood her grief and just wanted to take the burden on himself for her.