A Bride for the Sheriff’s Broken Heart (Preview)

Chapter One

Clara 

Clara Whitfield rubbed at her temple and pushed her spectacles higher on her nose. Her auburn hair was forever escaping its pins, brushing against a face that might have been called plain, if not for the sharp intelligence behind her gray eyes. 

The cramped apartment smelled of ink, stale bread, and the coal smoke that forever drifted in from the street below. She sat hunched over her ledger books, the numbers marching in neat rows beneath her careful hand. All that discipline, all those long hours, and still there was no getting ahead.

Her wages as a bookkeeper stretched only far enough for rent, food, and a few modest dresses. Nothing more. No savings to speak of, no chance of her own shop, no future that looked different from the one she already lived. Twenty-four years old, and she could already see her life laid out in gray lines like the city blocks around her.

It was suffocating.

Outside her window, the noise of New York hammered on—cart wheels, men shouting, the clip-clop of horses, the rattle of the elevated trains. The chaos had once thrilled her, back when she was a girl newly freed from the orphanage she’d grown up in, certain the world must hold some special place for her. Now it pressed in too close, reminding her of how very small she was among so many.

There was no special place for her. She was just another face in the crowd.

She closed the ledger, its worn leather cover soft beneath her fingers. 

“Practical to a fault,” she muttered. That was how Emily always teased her. Emily, who had sworn her undying loyalty more than once, and had proved it time and again by being there for her no matter what came their way.

Clara supposed it was true. She’d always counted pennies before wishes. Always straightened the rows of her life so nothing looked untidy. And yet, for all her careful planning, she was lonely.

Family.

The word ached like an old bruise. She had none, not really. The orphanage had given her food, shelter, and Scripture. It had not given her a mother’s hand smoothing her hair or a father’s steady presence. Even now, with Emily as her closest friend, her only true family, there remained an emptiness nothing in New York had ever filled.

A knock sounded at the door. 

“Clara? You’re still working?” Emily’s voice was warm and teasing.

Clara pushed back from the table. “Come in.”

Emily bustled inside, cheeks pink from the cold outside, dark curls peeking out from beneath her bonnet to frame a round face. She set down a small bundle of papers. “Look what I brought.”

Where Clara was reserved and neat, Emily was fuller in form, quick to laugh, and endlessly determined to pull her into mischief.

Clara eyed the bundle warily. “More advertisements?”

“Letters,” Emily corrected, perching on the edge of the narrow bed. “From the Gazette. You know—the matrimony column.”

Clara’s stomach twisted. She’d seen them before, tucked in the back pages between shipping notices and advertisements for patent medicines. Lonely men seeking wives, women seeking a better life. The postings always felt halfway between desperation and hope.

“I thought we agreed those weren’t serious,” Clara said.

Emily grinned. “I agreed you weren’t serious. I, however, find them delightful reading. Listen to this one: ’Stalwart rancher of Montana seeks God-fearing lady of gentle disposition to share homestead. Must know how to cook beans.’”

Clara snorted a laugh. “Romantic.”

Emily rifled through until she found another. “And this: ’Widower in Nevada, sheriff by trade, seeks respectable woman willing to help raise two young children. Must have patience and steady character. Humor preferred, though not required.’” She looked up, eyes dancing. “Now that sounds like you.”

Clara froze. “Sheriff?”

“Yes, Sheriff James Mercer. Red Rock Crossing, Nevada.” Emily handed the sheet over. “Read it. You even have a bit of humor to pass around, don’t you think?” Her warm brown eyes twinkled.

Clara smoothed the creased paper and began. The words were plain, even blunt. No fancy flourishes, just a man laying out his life in simple lines: a town in the foothills, two children too lively for their grandmother to manage alone, work that kept him busy but often lonely. 

Loneliness was something Clara understood all too well. 

He didn’t beg. He didn’t oversell. Yet between those steady sentences, Clara felt something—a quiet humor, a loneliness that mirrored her own.

She set the page down slowly. “He sounds… decent.”

“Decent!” Emily cried. “Well… that’s high praise from you.”

Clara gave her a look. “Don’t be foolish.” But her fingers lingered on the edge of the letter.

Emily sobered, studying her friend. “Clara, you’ve worked yourself half to death in this city. You deserve more than ledgers and cold suppers. Don’t you ever think about what you want?”

Clara swallowed hard. “Of course I do. But there are things that need to be done, responsibilities, a life that needs building.”

“Yes, that’s staying alive, but Clara… that’s not living, is it? What do you really want?”

“A family.” The words slipped out before she could stop them. She quickly cleared her throat and busied herself gathering the rest of the papers. “But wanting and having are two different matters.”

Emily leaned closer. “Maybe not. This James Mercer—he isn’t promising riches. Just a home. Children. A chance to belong.”

Clara’s chest tightened. Belong. The word cut deeper than she expected. She had imagined, on weary nights, what it might feel like to sit at a table where she was wanted. To hear children’s laughter not from the street below, but inside her own home. To have the sort of life she’d never had growing up.

She shook her head quickly, as if to clear it. “He doesn’t know me. And I know nothing of Nevada. It’s one thing to build a new life, but in a world I know nothing of, and people who are complete strangers? That’s a whole different matter, isn’t it?” She added, softer, “What if I can’t manage?” 

That was her real fear. Not the unknown, but rather, not being good enough.

Emily squeezed her hand. “You’ve managed everything else life has thrown at you. You’re a strong woman, Clara Whitfield. You’ve survived so much. Why not this?”

Clara let out a shaky laugh. “Because beans burn under my watch, and I’ve never so much as braided a child’s hair.”

“All skills can be learned,” Emily said firmly. “But kindness, patience—those you already have. That’s what matters. You deserve happiness, my friend. More than anyone I know.”

Clara’s gaze drifted back to the sheriff’s letter. She imagined the red rocks he’d described, the quiet of a town where the loudest sound might be cattle lowing or church bells ringing. A far cry from the endless clamor outside her window the city she’d learned to accept, if not love.

For the first time in months, perhaps years, she allowed herself to wonder—what if?

Clara sat long after Emily had gone to bed, the lamplight burning low, casting thin shadows over the walls of their little apartment. The city outside never quieted—wagons clattered, voices rose in argument, somewhere a baby wailed, and a drunk sang off-key until someone shouted him into silence.

In her hands lay a letter that spoke of silence of another kind. James Mercer’s words were steady, measured, touched here and there with humor that eased the plainness of his sentences. 

I am a sheriff by duty, though most days that means chasing stray cows or keeping peace when drink runs too free. My children are lively. Too lively, perhaps, for their grandmother alone. I miss a woman’s company at the table. I reckon that’s why I write.

Clara read those lines over and over. They were not the words of a poet, nor of a desperate man trying to dress up his life. They were honest. And honesty was rare enough in her world to make her take notice.

She pushed her spectacles back up the bridge of her nose and tried to imagine the man who had written them. A widower, the paper had said. She pictured a man with worry lines etched around his eyes, perhaps broad-shouldered from a life lived outdoors. A man who tucked his children into bed at night, then sat alone by the fire with no one to share the day with.

Her chest ached. She knew that kind of loneliness.

Still, doubt gnawed at her. She had never cared for children. She didn’t dislike them, she simply had no experience beyond brief glimpses of neighbors’ little ones. What if she failed at the most important part of his request?

She let the letter drop to the table and rubbed at her eyes. Practicality meant recognizing the risk. To travel halfway across the country for a man she had never met was folly. It might mean a hard life in a place far more rugged than she could manage.

But practicality also whispered that she couldn’t live her whole life on this cramped street, scratching out columns of numbers until her back bent and her eyesight failed and the last flicker of hope in her chest died out. What awaited her here? An endless march of the same.

She thought of the orphanage, the long rows of cots, the way she used to watch other girls leave with families who claimed them. She had been left behind every time. She was tired of being left behind.

Her gaze slid again to James Mercer’s letter.

I reckon that’s why I write.

He sounded as if he didn’t expect much. And yet he had written anyway, sending words into the wide unknown, hoping some woman might read them and answer.

Clara rose, pacing the narrow space between table and bed. Her boots thudded softly on the worn floorboards. 

What if I said yes? 

The thought made her heart race.

She stopped at the window, staring out at the city. Gas lamps lined the street, their light hazy through soot-stained glass. The air carried the sharp tang of coal smoke and the stink of refuse. Somewhere down the block, men argued over a card game gone sour. 

She pressed her palm against the cold pane.

A different image stirred in her mind—sagebrush plains rolling under open sky, red rock cliffs catching the sunset, the hush of evenings broken only by children’s laughter. She’d never seen such a place, yet his words had painted it clear enough that her imagination did the rest.

Behind her, the clock ticked. Each sound reminded her that time was not standing still. She was twenty-four. Not old, but not young by the measure of marriageable women. How many more years would she wait before she dared to reach for something more?

Clara turned back to the table. Slowly, carefully, she took out her stationery and dipped her pen in ink. For long minutes she only stared at the blank page, her heart hammering as though the first word might seal her fate.

Sheriff Mercer, she wrote, her handwriting precise, the way it always was. She hesitated, then let the words flow. 

She told him of her work as a bookkeeper, of her lack of family, of her friend Emily who had already promised she would go West with her no matter what. She admitted her practical nature, but also her longing for a home where she truly belonged. She didn’t embellish. She simply told the truth, the way he had.

By the time she laid down her pen, the letter stretched across three pages. She read it through once, cheeks warming at her own frankness. But she didn’t dare change anything. She’d been honest, and he deserved that from her.

She folded the letter, sealed it with a careful press, and set it aside to be posted in the morning.

Clara blew out the lamp and finally slid beneath her thin blanket. The city noises continued, the same as every night, but something inside her had shifted. For the first time in years, the noise didn’t feel like the whole world pressing down. It felt like a world she might finally leave behind.

Chapter Two

James

The jailhouse in Red Rock Crossing, Nevada wasn’t much to look at—two narrow cells, a desk scarred with years of use, and a stove that smoked whenever the wind shifted wrong. But it was warm this morning, and Sheriff James Mercer reckoned that was enough. He leaned back in his chair, coffee cup in hand, listening to the scrape of Luke’s boots across the floorboards as his cousin shuffled in.

Luke poured himself a cup from the pot, grimacing at the taste after one swallow. “You make this coffee or did the stove burn it to death?”

James gave him a dry look. “It’s coffee. You wanted fancy, you should’ve stayed in Virginia City.”

Tall and broad-shouldered, James Mercer carried the rugged look of a man shaped by the Nevada sun—dark blond hair cut short, a jaw often shadowed with stubble, and eyes the color of storm clouds. At thirty, he knew he looked older than his years, wear etched into the lines around his mouth.

“Lord save me from city coffee,” Luke muttered, though he drank anyway.

He was muscular, younger than James by a couple years, with an easy grin that softened the angles of his face. He slouched against the wall, looking more like a man waiting for supper than a deputy charged with keeping law in a frontier town.

James envied that ease. He hadn’t felt it in years.

He took another sip from his own cup, even though it was bitter. He wouldn’t admit to Luke that his coffee was, indeed, pretty bad.

Outside the open window, morning light spilled across the sagebrush hills and dust rose in lazy spirals where wagons rattled down Main Street. A supply train from Virginia City had rolled in at dawn, and already the general store’s porch was stacked with crates—salt pork, flour, bolts of fabric, tobacco. Townsfolk called greetings to one another, the sound carrying on the crisp air.

It was a peaceful scene, the kind he was used to. Red Rock Crossing wasn’t a rough town. A sheriff here spent more time coaxing drunks to sleep it off than chasing down killers. Most days, that suited him. After the war, and after losing Willa, James had had enough of death.

But peaceful didn’t mean easy.

He rubbed a hand over his face, feeling the weight of sleepless nights. “Ma’s worn out,” he said finally. “So am I.”

Luke raised his brows. “The twins?”

James gave a humorless laugh. “Who else? Daniel’s got the devil in him, and Sophie’s no better. They climb anything that’ll hold ’em, argue over everything, and run Ma ragged from sunup to sundown.” He paused, staring into his cup. “They’re good kids. Just… too much for Ma alone. Too much for me some days.”

Luke nodded, not unkind. “Six years old. Wild age.”

“Wild don’t cover it.” James thought of last night—their shrieks echoing through the house as they raced each other around the table, knocking cups over, ignoring every word he said until he finally had to bellow loud enough to rattle the windows. Sophie had burst into tears. Daniel had glared at him, stubborn chin jutting just like Willa’s used to. 

Both had crawled into bed without so much as a kiss goodnight.

He tried not to let the memory sting. They were too young to understand. They still asked for their mother sometimes, in the quiet moments before sleep. James had no answer for them, not one that wouldn’t break him.

Luke set his cup down with a soft clink. “You ever think maybe they need more than the two of you? Another hand in the house.”

James glanced at him sharply. “You’ve been talking to Ma.”

“Maybe.” Luke grinned a little. “But I didn’t need her to tell me. I can see it plain enough. You’re run ragged, James. And lonely, besides.”

James bristled, but only for a heartbeat. He sighed, setting his cup down. “You think I don’t know it? I do. I just—” His throat worked. “Willa’s been gone two years, and I still expect her to walk through the door some nights. Hard enough to think of another woman in her place, let alone try to explain it to the twins.”

Silence stretched. Outside, a wagon wheel creaked, followed by children’s laughter.

Luke crossed his arms. “You’re not replacing Willa. You’re finding help. Finding someone to love those kids. There’s nothing wrong with that. You need some company when the house gets too quiet.” He tilted his head. “Don’t tell me you ain’t thought of it.”

James hesitated. He had thought of it—more often lately. The letters in his desk drawer testified to that, the letters he’d already sent out. Women back East, writing in careful script, offering themselves as wives to men they’d never met had sparked the idea. 

A strange thing, maybe even desperate for him to have done it. But he couldn’t deny the tug it gave him, knowing there were women willing to come West, willing to try for a life here.

“I’ve written a few,” he admitted at last. “Nothing serious.”

Luke’s grin widened. “So it’s true.”

“Don’t go spreading it around,” James warned. “Last thing I need is the whole town gossiping about how Sheriff Mercer can’t keep house without sending for a bride.”

Luke chuckled. “They wouldn’t fault you. Most folks figure you’ve done twice the work any man should. Raising twins, running this town, carrying Willa’s memory. Hell, I don’t know how you’ve done it.”

James shrugged. “Because I had to.”

That was the simple truth.

He had buried his wife, held his children as they cried, and then risen the next day because they needed him. Duty had carried him when grief could’ve swallowed him whole. 

But duty wasn’t enough anymore. He felt the loneliness gnawing deeper with each passing month, an ache he couldn’t heal with hard work or long days.

Luke studied him, tone softening. “So? Any of those letters worth a second look?”

James thought of one in particular—a woman named Clara Whitfield. Her handwriting had been neat, her words thoughtful. She hadn’t pretended at skills she didn’t have. She admitted she was practical, maybe too practical, but she longed for a family. 

That line had struck him like a bell. Longed for a family. He understood that kind of hunger.

He cleared his throat. “Maybe one.”

Luke leaned forward, grinning like a boy. “What’s she like?”

James hesitated, then spoke despite his natural reserve. “Smart. She keeps books for a living. Says she doesn’t have kin, just a friend who’s like a sister. She didn’t fuss about the children—didn’t balk at the thought of raising ’em. And there’s… kindness in her words. A steadiness.”

Luke whistled low. “Sounds promising. You gonna ask her to come?”

James stared out the window at the sunlight gilding the red rocks beyond town. He pictured the twins running wild across the yard, Ma calling after them with no hope of keeping up. He pictured the empty place at his table, the silence that fell too heavy once the children were asleep.

“I might,” he said quietly. “Not just for me. For them.”

Luke clapped him on the shoulder. “Then do it. Write her again. You’ve carried enough alone, cousin. Time you let someone in.”

James gave a faint smile, though worry tugged at him still. What if the woman came and found she couldn’t stand the noise, the chaos, the grief still shadowing his home? What if his children drove her away?

But he remembered Clara’s words, steady and sure on the page. I long for a family of my own.

Maybe her longing and his could meet in the middle.

By midmorning, the jailhouse had grown too quiet for James’s liking. He and Luke stepped outside, stretching in the cool air. Sunlight spilled across the red rock cliffs that guarded the town like weathered sentinels. The air smelled of sagebrush and dust, sharp and clean compared to the smoke-hazed cities James had visited from time to time.

Main Street bustled in its own modest way. A pair of freighters guided their oxen past the livery, shouting to one another as wagons creaked under the weight of fresh supplies from Virginia City. Children darted between the horses, hollered after by mothers standing on porches. Men tipped their hats when James passed, some with hearty greetings, others with the nod of respect he’d earned these past years as sheriff.

It was a sleepy town, most days. A bank, a church, the general store, two saloons, and a scattering of homesteads stretching toward the hills. Not much in the way of excitement—until the children found trouble to stir, or the miners down from the hills let whiskey talk louder than good sense.

“Sheriff,” called Mrs. Harper from the boardwalk outside her millinery shop. She was a stout woman with an eye for lace and gossip both. “You’ll be keeping those drifters in line at the saloon tonight, won’t you?”

James tipped his hat. “Always do, ma’am.”

She sniffed, satisfied, and turned back to fussing with a hat in her window.

Luke smothered a grin beside him. “Half the town thinks you keep the place standing by sheer will.”

James shrugged. “Let ’em. Keeps folks settled.”

But his thoughts strayed as they walked—back to the house he’d left at sunrise, where his mother had been coaxing porridge into two wriggling children, their faces sticky with jam before he’d finished buttoning his shirt. He could still hear Daniel shouting that he’d be sheriff someday, while Sophie insisted she’d rather be a horse. Their chaos filled every corner, and while he loved them fierce, the noise left him hollow once it stopped.

He slowed outside the general store, drawn by the smell of fresh-cut pine crates and kerosene. Inside, Mr. Benson was tallying supplies with his usual pinched look, spectacles perched on the end of his nose. He glanced up. 

“Morning, Sheriff. Shipment came in just as you said. Flour, lamp oil, even a crate of apples for the boardinghouse.”

“Good,” James said, running a hand over the smooth lid of a crate. “Town’ll be glad for it.”

“Always glad when things run easy,” Benson muttered. Then his eyes sharpened. “Word is you’ve been writing letters back East. That true?”

James stiffened. He hadn’t breathed a word of it beyond Luke and his mother. But Benson had a way of sniffing out news before it was ripe.

“Word travels fast,” James said flatly.

Benson smirked. “Fast enough. Monroe at the post office can spot a long-distance letter like a hawk spots its prey. Folks figure it’s about time you had someone in that house besides your poor mother. Two young ones like yours’ll wear her clean out.”

James forced a polite smile and moved on. Outside, Luke chuckled. 

“Told you it’d be no secret for long.”

James grunted. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll do what’s right for my family.”

Still, unease churned in him. He hated the thought of strangers weighing in on something as private as whether he remarried. Monroe couldn’t keep his nose out of others’ business if he tried, and the moment Benson got word of something… well, there was no chance of it staying a secret.

Yet he couldn’t deny Benson was right—Martha was wearing down. Her hair had turned more silver this year, her steps slower. She deserved peace, not endless battles with children too young to mind.

They walked on, past the smithy where old Mr. Conlan hammered sparks into the air, past the saloon where piano music tinkled faint and ragged in the daylight hours. Every building, every face, was part of the life James had built since coming west. 

He was proud of it. But pride didn’t fill an empty chair at supper.

Back at the jailhouse, Luke slouched into his chair with his boot heels hooked on a rung. “So. You gonna write her again?”

James sat at his desk, staring at the drawer where Clara’s letter lay folded. He could picture it clearly—the steady script, the way she’d written with both care and honesty. More than once he returned to her admission of having no kin beyond a friend she counted as a sister. That truth tugged at him, echoing his own sense of emptiness. 

He understood that loneliness down to his bones and he wanted her to have the same answers he was looking for—a family, a life to be proud of in more ways than one.

His hand drifted to the drawer, resting there as though he might draw strength from the touch. “I am,” he said finally. “She deserves to know I mean it serious. If she’s willing, I’ll bring her here.”

Luke’s grin spread wide. “About time. I’ll tell you what, James—you get her here, and this whole town will breathe easier. Folks will be glad to see you’ve got someone at your side.”

James gave a quiet laugh. “You and Ma. Always scheming.”

“Not scheming. Just wanting you happy. And those twins of yours, they need someone soft as well as firm. You’ve done your best, but you can’t be both parents.”

The truth of it sat heavy. He had tried—oh, he had tried—but he could never give them what Willa had. They needed gentleness, warmth, the kind of comfort his hands—so used to iron and law—didn’t always know how to give.

He looked again at the drawer. Clara’s words echoed in his mind. 

I long for a family of my own.

He reached for paper and ink. His hand shook just slightly as he dipped the pen, but once he set it to the page, the words came easier than he expected. He told her about the town, about the red rocks glowing at sunset, about his children—stubborn, spirited, in need of patience. He admitted his loneliness, not with self-pity but with plain truth. And before he could second-guess himself, he asked her to come.

By the time he signed his name, the sun had swung high, throwing bright light across the desk.

Luke leaned over his shoulder. “Looks like a fine letter. She’d be a fool to say no.”

James folded it, sealing it with wax. He held it a moment longer, thinking of a woman somewhere back East, perhaps sitting at a table not so different from his own, staring at the same kind of paper with the same kind of hope.

He stood, slipping the letter into his pocket. “I’ll take it to Monroe for the next post.”

Luke slapped his back. “Then we’ll see what the good Lord brings, cousin.”

James stepped outside again, blinking into the glare of Nevada sun. The air was dry, the sky so blue it hurt to look at. Across the street, children ran by shouting, and he thought of his own, waiting at home. Waiting, perhaps, for more than he could give alone.

For the first time in years, a flicker of something stirred in him—hope, fragile but steady. If Clara Whitfield said yes, maybe Red Rock Crossing would no longer feel quite so empty when night fell. Maybe his house would ring with more than noise and grief. Maybe it could ring with laughter that healed instead of hurt.

He set his hat firm on his head and started toward the post office. It was time to send the letter.