Tender Mercies

Some wounds only heal when you let someone else hold the bandage.

Eliza Miller has spent nine years proving that love is something you earn through service. When word reaches Philadelphia that her widowed aunt has suffered a stroke in the rugged Montana Territory, Eliza doesn’t hesitate—she boards a westbound train, determined to repay the woman who once raised her. But Providence Ridge is nothing like the orderly world she left behind, and the town’s only doctor seems determined to stand between Eliza and the aunt who needs her. If she can just be useful enough, helpful enough, tireless enough… maybe she can finally outrun the voice that whispers she’ll never be enough.

Dr. Samuel Porter hasn’t slept a full night in three years. Not since a child died in his quiet room despite everything he did to save her. Now he runs on coffee, duty, and the grim certainty that rest is a luxury the frontier cannot afford. The last thing he needs is a refined eastern woman questioning his methods—especially one whose quiet competence threatens the careful walls he’s built around his heart. Eliza doesn’t flinch at blood or death. She doesn’t demand gratitude. And when she looks at him, she sees something he’s worked hard to bury: a man who has forgotten how to want anything for himself.

When fever sweeps through the boardinghouse and a powerful enemy begins a quiet campaign to destroy Samuel’s reputation, Eliza becomes the partner he never asked for—and the one person who might be able to reach him before he works himself into an early grave. But as wildfire smoke darkens the summer sky and forces them both to confront the lies they’ve lived by, Samuel and Eliza must decide: Is love something you earn through endless sacrifice? Or is it a mercy you receive—even when you don’t deserve it?

In a town built on hard work and harder choices, two people who have made themselves indispensable must learn the most difficult lesson of all: that being loved has nothing to do with being useful.

Tropes:

Forced proximity
Wounded hero / heroine
Grumpy doctor meets steadfast caregiver
Found family / small-town community
Slow-burn Christian romance
Partners to lovers

Reader Promise: Tender Mercies is a clean Christian historical romance with no explicit content, an emotionally layered faith journey, tender moments of grace, and a deeply satisfying happily-ever-after that will leave your heart full.