Madeleine Urban/Abigail Roux - Sticks and Stones

Six months after nearly losing their lives to a serial killer in New York City, FBI Special Agents Ty Grady and Zane Garrett are suffering through something almost as frightening: the monotony of desk duty. When they're ordered to take a vacation for the good of everyone's sanity, Ty bites the bullet and takes Zane home with him to West Virginia, hoping the peace and quiet of the mountains will give them the chance to explore the explosive attraction they’ve so far been unable to reconcile with their professional partnership. Ty and Zane, along with Ty’s father and brother, head up into the Appalachian mountains for a nice, relaxing hike deep into the woods... where no one will hear them scream. They find themselves facing danger from all directions: unpredictable weather, the unrelenting mountains, wild animals, fellow hikers with nothing to lose, and the most terrifying challenge of all. Each other.

Comment: Since I enjoyed the first book in the series, Cut and Run, so much, I've decided to follow the rest of the series and to seize the time to read the last one to come out, something that will happen soon, and at that point I want to start it having read the 4 already out.
So, this books starts with the guys being told they need to have vacation time because Zane is failing his evaluations and if the keeps it up he will be put in desk duty again or simply will be let go, so the director tells Ty to go to his family and he decides to invite Zane so they can go to the mountains and do some trailing. Zane agrees because he feels Ty is more distanced and wants to take a chance in being close so they can work it out, maybe. In the mountains the guys meet Ty's parents, grandfather and brother and Zane is surprised on how Ty is with his family and sees a different part of hi partner. Still, both of them seem to find the time to deal more with the attraction they feel and help solve a crime at the same time because the mountains are more dangerous than what they imagined. Well, I was really hoping they would just say what they felt for each other in this story but that didn't happen with words, still there were several moments between them where it's plain to see. I just hope that it does happen sometime in the future because there's just so much tension I really wish to see some acceptance of all that's happening to them.
The plot is rather interesting because they go to have some time for healing and resting and in the end they witness a crime and some decisions have to be made, some of them much harder than they seemed because the beauty of this books is how well balanced the discussion of feelings and thoughts is at the same time the plot develops. One f the things I like about the stories is exactly this. Well done, authors.
The story also focus on Ty's family and the relationship between them. Zane is like an observer and it's fun to watch the others through his eyes. Even more interesting is Ty's brother, Deuce, in all this...he's a psychologist and his purposes are bigger than we might think.
This was a chance to see the guys interact with family around and it was fun...now I hope the next book puts them finally admitting, with those three little words, to each other, what they feel. I know this isn't exactly romance but come on, I'm a romantic, I want them happy.