In 1889, Sheriff Cooper Matthew's life is turned upside down when he suddenly finds himself the legal guardian of a baby girl named Annie. Cooper hasn't seen his late wife in nearly eight years, but because he'd never obtained a bill of divorcement, her child is legally his. Feeling unfit to raise a child, especially a baby girl, Cooper plans to give her to a suitable family. But before such a family is found, Cooper loses his heart to the blonde, blue-eyed pixie. Though she is not a child of his blood, Annie is the child of his heart.
Mary Louise Markham, is a blue stocking from Tennessee. Well educated and independently wealthy, Mary Louise is determined never to marry. After all, she says, why should she give up her name, her property, and her freedom for the dubious honor of becoming some man's live-in servant. But when her dying brother confesses he has a child by a local actress, Mary Louise is determined to find the child and raise it as her own. She later learns that her niece's mother has also died of the fever and that the child is in Alabama being cared for by the Sheriff Cooper Matthews. She assumes the Sheriff will be happy to give up the child and is therefore unprepared for his refusal to hand over Annie. What ensues is a rollicking custody battle between two bullheaded opponents, as they fight For the Love of Annie. . . .
Laura Jane O'Leary's future in Wilder's Landing couldn't be brighter. She has a teaching Job she loves, and she's about to marry a man she adores, but her dreams are shattered when she's brutally assaulted. As a result, her fiance breaks off their engagement, and she loses her teaching Job. To further complicate matters, Laura Jane discovers that she's carrying her assailant's child. Heart broken and ashamed, Laura Jane faces a wretched future.
Ezra Gray's dreams are shattered when his beloved wife dies giving birth to a stillborn child, leaving him to raise their two children alone. He blames himself for her death and he vows never to put another woman in harm's way. Ezra moves to Magnolia Bend, Alabama and it isn't long before he realizes it's impossible to work his farm and care for the children. What Ezra needs is a wife, not in the real sense, but a woman who would care for his children in exchange for a home and security, but how to find such a woman?
Perhaps it was God's intervention that brought Ezra Gray to purchase a farm a scant thirty miles from Wilder's Landing, and maybe it was His hand which guided Ezra to take his family to the small Methodist church where the Reverend Matthew McNally preached two Sundays each month.
Whether it was God's hand or simply the hand of fate, the two seemingly unimportant incidents would lead Laura Jane O'Leary and Ezra Gray to build a new life from those... SHATTERED DREAMS.
