Fair Colored Stones

"I thought my future was settled until Nelson Clarey started lookin' at me like I belong in his life. Now, I must choose 'tween the safe road to Saint Louis and the hard, beautiful life he is askin' me to share."

Mae Murphy has spent most of her life surviving: the War Between the States, a forced migration and months as a homeless refugee, the death of both parents, and the hard work of keeping a farm alive with little more than grief and grit to sustain her. Now, at twenty-three, she's finally finding her footing again-working a cookhouse job, helping her brother through his debilitating illness, and trying not to think too much about the handsome blue-eyed man who keeps showing up in her life.

Nelson Clarey is steady, kind, and determined to build a home on his land up on Bennett's Ridge. Mae can see the life he's offering her: love, safety, and a future rooted in one place. But she's also been promised another life-a life of relative ease in Saint Louis, with family, comforts, and no farm to carry on her back.

When the decision becomes impossible to ignore, Mae must choose between the freedom she knows and the love she didn't expect before time, distance, and duty decide for her.

Because some choices don't just change a life. They define it.