Strong and Stubborn (Husbands for Hire #3) - Kelly Eileen Hake

This book finishes out the Husbands for Hire series.  It is the story of Naomi's search for a husband and the resolution of the relationship between Braden and Cora.  It is important to read the other two before reading this one.  Book 1 is Rugged and Relentless and the second one is Tall, Dark and Determined.

Now that all the other potential brides have been spoken for, it's up to Naomi to keep up their end of the bargain and pick a husband from one of the workers.  The problem is, she has things in her past that make her reluctant to pick anyone at all.  She's going to have to reveal her past and she's so ashamed of what happened that she hasn't even told her best friends.

Mike is on the run to get his son away from his grandparents.  Marrying for money wasn't what he had planned for his life, but it's the lot he ends up with.  Now that his wife is dead, the boy's grandparents are insisting that Mike hand the boy over to their care.  With them threatening to do whatever it takes to get their grandson, Mike goes on the run and ends up at Hope Falls.

Right after Mike gets off the train, he gets wrapped up in helping the town.  Once he meets Naomi, they are attracted to each other.  Being a carpenter, Mike ends up working on a miniature house with Naomi.  After finding out that she is the last bride from the ad, he rethinks whether she is actually the woman for him.

Cora is finally fed up with Braden.  Determining to end their engagement and try to move on, Cora stands up to Braden and tells him off.  Braden has finally figured out that he's been cruel to Cora and just about everyone else and has to mend his ways.  But is he too late?

The book backtracks a bit, which put me off at first.  I had to go back and read the end of book two to figure out if I had missed something.  At the end of book 2, we had the cave in at the mine.  The beginning of this book starts before the cave in.

I did enjoy this book, it wrapped everything up in a nice package.  If you don't read the other two books before this one, you'll probably have no idea what is going on.  Most times I don't like series that make you commit to reading all the books to find out what happened, but this series was different.  At the end of the first two, you have enough resolution to the story that you could stop there and be okay.  If you want resolution to the whole story, you would need to read all three, in order.  They are chronological and there's enough missing that if you hadn't read the other two, you'd be lost.  Good series! Good Book!