Mercy Evans has known a great deal of heartache and hardship in her twenty-six years. She lost her mother at a young age and was only sixteen when her father was killed in 1880, in a brawl sparked by a family feud spanning several generations. Yet Mercy never doubts the presence and provision of her heavenly Father. When a house fire claims the lives of her two best friends, leaving their two young sons as orphans, Mercy offers to be their guardian. It seems simple enough, until the judge mandates that the boys be placed with a married couple. Samuel Connors is a man adrift. Despite the success of the blacksmith business he inherited from his father, he senses a void unaffected by material rewards. All he knows is that he’s ready to move out from under his manipulative mother’s roof. When the lovely Mercy Evans advertises for a husband, he finds himself strangely inclined to respond. But what would she want to do with the man whose father is now serving a life sentence for the murder of hers? Mercy is determined to do whatever it takes to win custody of the Watson boys. But marry a mortal enemy of the Evans family? God alone can give her the heart to go through with it.