The Baby at Willow Creek

Hannah Pike has traveled all the way to Susanville, Oregon, to become a wife. Instead, she arrives to find herself at the center of a scandal. Her intended husband, Thomas Delaney, is gone. He has fled town without explanation, leaving behind gambling debts, a heartbroken mother-and a motherless infant no one knew existed. Worse still, the people of Susanville are certain Hannah must know more than she admits. Even the sheriff suspects she may have helped Thomas disappear. Stranded thousands of miles from home with no money for the journey east, Hannah has nowhere to turn. But she cannot bring herself to abandon Thomas's ailing mother or the innocent baby left in the wreckage of his choices. So she stays, caring for them both while whispers follow her through town and suspicion closes in around her. The more Hannah learns about the man she came west to marry, the more troubling the truth becomes. And yet, amid betrayal and uncertainty, she begins to discover something she never expected to find in Susanville: a place where she might belong, a strength she never knew she possessed-and the possibility of a future with a romance very different from the one she came west to claim. Sometimes losing the life you planned is the only way to find the life meant for you.