The Cowboy’s Targeted Bride

Good mix of romance and suspense. Jerrod is one of the original twelve “lost boys” who came to work at Holiday Ranch when they were troubled teens. Over the last several years, most of them have found love and started their own families. At the beginning of the book, Jerrod feels pretty down in the dumps. He, too, wants a wife and family, but finding a woman to love hasn’t worked out. He’s just about given up when he gets a wild idea. After overhearing Lily’s troubles at the bank, Jerrod considers offering her a marriage of convenience. He’ll catch up with the mortgage payments and help make the ranch profitable if she will marry him and eventually have his baby.

Lily is a single mother who gave up on love. She loved her son’s father, but he took off after learning she was pregnant, taking her savings with him. Since then, Lily has struggled to keep her ranch afloat, working as a teacher to earn some of what she needs. She wants to keep her ranch going and have something to leave her son, but she’s reached the end of her rope. The bank threatens foreclosure, and she’s out of options. That is until Jerrod shows up on her doorstep with the most outlandish idea. Lily is stunned by the request, but after considering it, she accepts his proposal.

I loved Jerrod. He is kind, honorable, and fair. He understands that this is an unusual situation and is happy to let Lily set the pace for their relationship. He knows her son, Caleb, from his work at the community center and has infinite patience with the boy’s attitude. I liked Lily, too, but had a few problems with her. Thanks to her past, she has some trust issues, and early in their marriage is quick to jump to conclusions about Jerrod’s faithfulness. Though hurt by her accusations, Jerrod shows her the truth through his actions. As Lily and Jerrod settle into their marriage, an attraction begins to build between them, as do unexpected emotions. Life-threatening danger finally opens their eyes and hearts, and their own happily ever after.

The suspense of the story was intense. Someone is not happy about Lily’s marriage to Jerrod. It starts with annoying and creepy events, like a bloodied bride doll left on the porch and a lie about Jerrod’s faithfulness. Those quickly intensify to physical attempts on Lily’s life. There are several possible suspects and a shocking final confrontation. I was on the edge of my seat until it was all over, hoping that Jerrod would find Lily in time.

I enjoyed seeing characters from earlier books. Dillon and Cassie have prominent roles in this book. I especially loved how Cassie offered to help Jerrod give Lily a real wedding. Several of the other ranch hands also made appearances. Mac is the lone bachelor left of the original twelve, and I can’t wait for his book.

I’ve thoroughly been enjoying Carla Cassidy’s Holiday Ranch series, and this latest novel in the series is no exception. As the series has progressed, many of the lost boys who came to Holiday Ranch years ago and found a job and a purpose, have met the loves of their lives, married and started families of their own. There are only two bachelors left, Jerod and Mac, and this is Jerod’s story, and what a good and engrossing story it was–I read it cover-to-cover until 6:30 a.m. because in addition to being a marriage of convenience romance, it included one heck of a dramatic mystery as well, and there was no way I could put it down until I learned who the evildoer was–and what a shocker! It gets 4 stars from this reader.

Jerod Steen is one of the original 12 boys who came to live at Holiday Ranch, and as he’s watched his friends and fellow cowboys find love and happiness, he realizes, at age 35, that what what he really wants is something he was denied as a child, a wife, a home, a stable family and children of his own. Bitterroot, Oklahoma is a very small town, and none of the women he’s met and dated over the years have really struck his fancy. The idea of internet dating sites has no appeal either, and it’s not until he’s at the local bank, standing behind single mother and grade school teacher, Lily Kidwell, whose son, Caleb, he knows because of his work at the community center for at-risk children, and he overhears her conversation with the teller, a conversation in which she admits that she’s behind on her mortgage payments and is begging for another couple of weeks before they start foreclosure proceedings, on her home and ranch, that an idea begins to form in his mind.

Not long after that, Jerod turns up at Lily’s door with a proposition–a marriage of convenience, hardly a new trope, but something you see more of in historical rather than contemporary romances. Jerod offers to pay up Lily’s mortgage deficit, and save her ranch in exchange for her marrying him and bearing him a child. These are two people who barely know each other, and Lily is certainly dubious of his intentions because although she was in love with Caleb’s father, they weren’t married, and he took off as soon as she announced she was pregnant, and broke her heart. She’s not really dated in the past decade and is stunned by Jerod’s plan, buteventually considers it and finally agrees to his plan, but with more than a few reservations.

While that marriage of convenience plan and its developments would have been enough for a romance novel, Ms. Cassidy had a whole lot more in store for her readers–a gripping mystery and suspense novel, as someone is clearly not happy about Lily’s marriage to Jerod, and more than one event occurs that threatens not only Lily’s happiness, but her life as well. There are more than a couple of suspects, and once shocker of a denouement, which I won’t spoil for you, but it certainly was a mind-blower.

While I really liked this as a novel of romantic suspense, there were a couple of wrong notes that just didn’t work for me. First was Lily’s lack of trust in Jerod, who’d been more than kind, fair, supportive and understanding of her, allowing her to set the pace for theor relationship and the consummation of their marriage, and his kindness and decency toward her son, who’d been having anger issues at school. Jerod is a really good man, yet at the first sign of trouble–an envelope containing a pair of men’s boxers and the hint that Jerod has a woman on the side, after one week of marriage, Lily immediately jumps to the conclusion that’s he’s been cheating on her and asks for a divorce. Her doubts about her new husband were all about her low self-esteem and lack of trust in spite of all the goodness, decency, honesty and kindness Jerod exhibited on a daily basis–and that incident was just the beginning of her trust issues, which didn’t speak well of her, and I would have preferred a little more romance in this romance novel.

Yes, this novel is part of a series, although it hasn’t ever been billed as one, and it definitely works just fine as a standalone. Despite my issues with Lily, I still found this novel to be a gripping and exciting read, and I’m happy to recommend it.

I voluntarily read an advance reader copy of this novel. The opinions expressed are my own.