She struggles to support them and tries to make a home for them. But somehow, she never makes ends meet. Just when their lives seem hopeless, a man named Luther Stanton makes Lucy an astounding offer. He asks her to become his son's wife and proves his legal right to have the marriage performed by proxy. Full of misgivings, Lucy agrees to the marriage and leaves Boston for her new home in Wichita, Texas. But Caleb Stanton doesn't want a wife. And he particularly doesn't want a cultured, blond slip of a wife from the East. ...

    None of the nearby men meet her expectations, so she decides to advertise for a husband in newspapers back East. After all, she figures, men find wives that way. In Philadelphia, Gabe Hunters has spent his life buried in books, believing every question can be answered from the printed page - especially of the Bible. When he sees Lena's advertisement for a husband and father, he senses God pulling him to a place he's never before seen and work he has never done. Lena is confident that God doesn't make mistakes - but Gabe isn't at all what she expected. How can she ever learn to love this man?